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THE INVENTION OF WINGS
MULLIGAN’S MILL BOOK ONE

ROBIN KNIGHT
The Invention of Wings © 2024 Robin Knight
Self-published in the USA Robin Knight 2024

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by
any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, situations and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

This book is licensed to the purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution
and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. No part of this book can be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the publisher.

Published by Robin Knight

Edited by Val Wolfe
Cover Design by Robin Knight
 CONTENTS
Subscribe to Robin’s Newsletter and Follow him on Facebook
Get More with Robin’s Patreon Perks
Books by Robin Knight
Who’s Who in Mulligan’s Mill (so far)
Playlist
Content Warning:
1. Mitch
2. Gage
3. Mitch
4. Gage
5. Mitch
6. Gage
7. Mitch
8. Gage
9. Mitch
10. Gage
11. Mitch
12. Gage
13. Mitch
14. Gage
15. Mitch
16. Gage
17. Mitch
18. Gage
19. Mitch
20. Gage
21. Mitch
22. Gage
23. Mitch
24. Gage
25. Mitch
26. Mitch… One Month Later
Get a FREE Bonus Short Story when you sign up to my newsletter below
The Love and Laughs Continue in…
Have You Read?
About the Author
SUBSCRIBE TO ROBIN’S NEWSLETTER AND
FOLLOW HIM ON FACEBOOK
For exclusive news and content, visit Robin Knight’s website and subscribe to his newsletter!

And don’t forget to join Robin Knight’s Nest on Facebook for more fun and updates…
GET MORE WITH ROBIN’S PATREON PERKS
Join Robin’s Patreon page for even more exclusive perks and content, including:

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 B OOKS B Y ROB IN KN IG HT

CLICK ON THE TITLES FOR MORE STORIES BY ROBIN KNIGHT

SERIES

MULLIGAN’S MILL
The Invention of Wings: Mulligan’s Mill Book One
The Blooming of Bud: Mulligan’s Mill Book Two
The Bend in River: Mulligan’s Mill Book Three
The Secret Love of Bea: A Mulligan’s Mill Short Story

MY BILLIONAIRE
The Billionaire’s Boyfriend: My Billionaire Book One
The Billionaire’s Wedding: My Billionaire Book Two
The Billionaire’s Wish: My Billionaire Book Three

FATHOM’S FIVE
The Cross of Sins: Fathom’s Five Book One
The Pyramid of Puzzles: Fathom’s Five Book Two
The Eye of Doom: Fathom’s Five Book Three
The Tomb of Heaven: Fathom’s Five Book Four
The Temple of Time: Fathom’s Five Book Five
The Tears of the Golden Tiger: Fathom’s Five Book Six
The Thief of Thunder: Fathom’s Five Book Seven
The Dame of Notre Dame: A Fathom’s Five Short Adventure

STANDALONE NOVELS

ROMANTIC-COMEDIES
The Chocolate Works
The Fake Prince Jake

ROMANCE
A Boy Called Rainbow
Heartless
One in a Million
The Pathfinders
The Pearl
Under the Arabian Sky

ADVENTURE
Drive Shaft
Scott Sapphire and the Emerald Orchid

MYSTERIES
The Lost Boy

THRILLERS
Harm’s Way
 Into the Jaws of Wolves
To the End of the Line

STANDALONE SHORT STORIES AND NOVELLAS

A Cousin to Kiss
Anchor of My Heart
And the Beagle Makes Three
Be My Valentine, Bobby Bryson
Behind Our Eyes
Chained To You
Claiming Casey
Hotel Pens
Santa’s Big Secret
The Boy from Brighton
The Cat’s Pajamas
The Declaration of Love
The Nutcracker
The Salt on my Skin
The Stepbrother on his Doorstep
Untangling Tristan
Video Store Valentine

SHORT STORY SERIES

CONFESSIONS OF A STRAIGHT GUY

Bro Job
Ripped
Stripped
Study Buddy
Touchdown
 W H O’ S W H O I N M U LLI G A N ’ S M I LL ( S O FA R )

In Alphabetical Order

Aunt Bea: The proud owner of Aunt Bea’s Barnyard Bar, Aunt Bea loves sequins and soul music, is fiercely loyal to those she
accepts as her found family, and refuses to suffer fools gladly… except for the one secret love who has unexpectedly captured
her heart.
Benji Larson: The owner of Benji’s BnB, Benji has been nursing a broken heart ever since the love of his life, Bastian Cole,
abandoned their dream of opening the BnB together, instead skipping town for a big-shot career in Chicago… but if Bastian
ever returned, could Benji ever love him again?

Bo Harlow: Once a bully, always a bully. That’s the story of Bo’s life. A hot-headed, hotter-than-hell troublemaker who will
forever be the bane of everyone’s existence… or can the bad boy of Mulligan’s Mill change his ways with a little help from
someone who can heal his hurt and truly love him?

Brooks Beresford: The ultimate bookworm, Brooks is the owner of Brooks’ Book Nook, happily finding all his boyfriends in
fiction because they always come to the rescue and are perfect to curl up with in bed at night… but will a real-life boyfriend
sweep Brooks off his feet one day?

Bud Sanders: The best friend of Mitch ‘Wings’ Winton, Bud is as loyal and loving as a Labrador, but secretly he harbors
dreams that sprout beyond working as a grease monkey at Mike’s Mechanics… if only he can find the inspiration to make his
true calling blossom.

Doc Morgan: The only medical professional in town, Doc Morgan has been treating the people of Mulligan’s Mill for longer
than anyone can remember. But there’s one person in town who can mend the Doc’s own long-suffering heartache… if only the
pair of them could learn to forgive and forget.
Gage Channing: Once captain of the school hockey team, Gage’s life has been turned upside-down by hardship. Now the sole
carer of his niece, Ginny, Gage has given up all his dreams but one… to once again fall in love with his secret school crush,
Mitch ‘Wings’ Winton.

Ginny Channing: The eleven-year-old niece of Gage Channing, Ginny is the sole survivor of a car accident that claimed the
lives of her parents and left her with a disability… but a wheelchair is no match for Ginny’s snarky wit and fearless
determination to live out her dreams and conquer the ice of Lassiter’s Lake.

Harry Dalton: The owner of Harry’s Hardware, Harry is a burly, beefy, bear of a man with a heart as big as his muscles… if
only he could admit to himself and the world who it is he truly loves, Harry might finally find the happiness he deserves.

Maggie Winton: The big sister of Mitch ‘Wings’ Winton, the endearingly nicknamed Maggie-Pie is a big-hearted, fun-loving
rebel who has developed a hoarding complex that brings Mitch back to Mulligan’s Mill… but how do you mend a broken heart
as big as Maggie’s?

Mitch ‘Wings’ Winton: After being rejected by his secret high school sweetheart Gage Channing, and failing epically at his
chance to win gold in figure skating, Mitch fled Mulligan’s Mill, only to return years later to help his sister Maggie… and
perhaps find a second chance at love.
Mrs. Roper: The cantankerous old neighbor of Maggie Winton, Mrs. Roper is the opinionated town gossip who doesn’t mind
telling the townspeople of Mulligan’s Mill exactly what she thinks of them, making her the nosiest nuisance in town.

Walt Bucket: As ancient as the hills but by no means as wise, smart-mouthed Walt works at Harry’s Hardware, stacking
shelves and sorting nails… but what is the decades-old secret that sarcastic old Walt hides, a secret that nobody in Mulligan’s
Mill would ever suspect?
 P L AY LI S T

Broken Wings by Mr. Mister

Rocket Man by Elton John
Midnight Train to Georgia by Gladys Knight and the Pips
River Deep, Mountain High by The Supremes and The Four Tops
Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now by Starship
Someday I’ll Fly Away by Randy Crawford
The Wind Beneath My Wings by Bette Midler
Our Lips are Sealed by The Go-Go’s
Tiny Dancer by Elton John
Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien by Edith Piaf
Another One Bites the Dust by Queen
We Built This City by Starship
I Can See Clearly Now by Johnny Nash
 CONTENT WARNING:

This book features a character with a hoarding disorder as a result of family loss.
 For Macy

Thank you for all the years of friendship and love.

And all the words of wisdom along the way.

Bless your sassy heart!

THE INVENTION OF WINGS
MULLIGAN’S MILL BOOK ONE

ROBIN KNIGHT
 M ITC H

“OH THE HORROR… oh the humiliation… oh the humanity! Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve just witnessed the end of a career!
My God, that was like watching a rocket ship explode on take-off. Wings had this in the bag, that figure skating medal was
his for the taking. But just when he was ready to shoot for the stars, down he comes in a ball of flames. And just like that,
it’s all over for one of the most promising athletes of our time. What a failure! What a disappointment! What a national
embarrassment! I can’t even imagine what his hometown of Mulligan’s Mill is thinking right now. I guess they should
change his nickname from ‘Wings’ to ‘Broken Wings’.”
You know how sometimes you get a song playing on a loop in your brain, over and over again, and the only way to get rid
of it is to listen to another song? Well for me, the television commentary on the day my career went to hell in a handbasket is
that song. Morning and night, asleep or awake, it haunted me, even seven years after the incident… only there was no getting it
out of my head.
“What if I sing to you something else?” said Bud over the phone. “Something you’re not expecting. Something really
fucking annoying, even more annoying than that damn commentary. Oh hell, I know, how about Baby Shark?”
“Oh my God, no. Bud, I love you, but if you start singing that song, you’re fucking dead to me.”
“Oooh wait… what about It’s a Small World?”
“Isn’t that song about bringing the world together in peace and harmony? How can that be annoying?”
“How can it not be annoying when you’re stuck on that tiny boat and all those creepy little animatronic children-of-the-corn
keep waving at you and singing at you and looking at you with their beady little eyes like they’re the spawn of Satan himself.”
“Do you need to see a professional?”
“Holy shit, I’ve got the shivers just thinking about that ride. It’s like being indoctrinated into a cult that lives in a dark tunnel
and thrives on cotton candy. And before you know it, you’re singing their fanatical chant like you’re one of them.”
“You definitely need to seek help.”
“Mitch, I’m serious. Have you never been to Disneyland?”
“No, I haven’t! I gave up my entire childhood to follow my father’s dream of becoming a world-class skater… remember?”
“Oh, shut up! I know what’ll get that annoying fucking commentary out of your puny little brain… Gangnam Style.”
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“Does anyone?”
“Bud… stop. You know what, just listening to you talk has made me forget all about the commentary. Mission
accomplished. Now what was the reason for today’s call again?”
Before he could answer, Bud let out a loud, “Aw, shit!”
“What is it? You okay?”
“Yeah. Although I’m under Dilbert and he just decided to splooge all over me.”
To be clear, Dilbert was in fact not a person, but rather Mr. Carnegie’s old pickup that seemed to spend every second week
in Mike’s mechanic shop where Bud and my sister Maggie worked. That’s where Bud was now, calling me from my hometown
of Mulligan’s Mill as he did almost every day, while I hurried up the subway stairs and weaved through the throng of tourists
and Manhattanites on Fifth Avenue, rushing toward my job in Central Park as a light snow began to fall.
Over the phone, Bud spluttered and cursed. “Ugh, Jesus. The oil in this old tin can is as goopy as your sister’s tapioca. Oh,
speaking of Maggie-Pie, that’s the reason for my call.”
I gave a sigh. “What’s she done now?”
“It’s not so much what she’s done, but what she doesn’t do.”
“You’re talking about the house, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” he said, long and slow. “It’s turning into a total mess.” I could practically hear the grimace on his face. “I know
you don’t wanna hear it, but Mrs. Roper next door said she’s done praying for Maggie’s soul. She’s worried everything inside
the house is gonna start spilling outside. She said that if Maggie doesn’t do something about it, she’ll start a petition… and if
that doesn’t work, she’s gonna call Sheriff Garrett and ask him to arrest her… and if that doesn’t work she said she’s gonna
burn the house down and dance in the ashes.”
“Ah, good old Mrs. Roper. Such a good Christian woman. She threatened to do the same when Brooks bought the old,
abandoned church and turned it into a bookstore, remember? Then the next morning she decided that Mrs. Peabody’s
abomination of a pumpkin pie recipe was worth much more attention. Just ignore her.”
“I would… except Maggie-Pie didn’t take too kindly to the threats.”
I had to stop on the pavement, the tide of New Yorkers on their way to work bumping my shoulders as they went around me.
“Oh God. What did she do?”
There was the sound of that grimacing face again. “She nailed Mrs. Roper’s doors and windows shut so she couldn’t get
out.”
“She didn’t.”
“And she cut the phone line.”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yeah. It took four days for anyone to figure out Mrs. Roper was stuck inside. The old biddy was furious. She said she
was forced to eat taffy and drink cherry liqueur just to survive. Apparently, they’re the only things she has in abundance in her
pantry.”
“Shit.”
“I know, right? Anyway, I just wanted to give you the heads up that Sheriff Garrett talked to Doc Morgan about Maggie-Pie.
Doc’s going to give you a call later today. He wants you to come home and take care of things.”
“Come home? I can’t. You know I can’t do that.”
“Mitch… it might be time.”
“Bud, it’s not happening.” The commentary was back on loop in my head, the words I could never seem to shake.
Failure?
Disappointment?
National embarrassment?
“Bud, you know I don’t have it in me right now.”
“Mitch, you’ve been gone for seven years! Jesus Christ, why can’t you just let this go?”
“Seriously, I’d love to. The problem is, it won’t let me go!”
“Mitch, your big sister needs you.”
“No, my big sister needs to learn to deal with this shit by herself. I’ve got my own shit to deal with. Honestly, Bud, you
have no idea what it feels like to have the hopes of an entire nation— your entire hometown— riding on your shoulders… only
to fall in a heap right when it matters the most.”
“Oh wowza, that is a serious god complex you have going on there. Enough already! Would you stop beating yourself up
over this? Nobody remembers. It’s time you came home and started over. It’s time to forget the past and start living your life.”
I gave a frustrated humph as I started walking again. If there was anyone in the world who could dish out the tough love
and get away with it, it was my loyal, loving, Labrador-in-human-form, best buddy Bud.
“Bud, I know you mean well, and I’m glad you’re there to look out for Maggie-Pie, but I really can’t do this right now. I’m
late for work.”
“Suit yourself, but be ready for Doc Morgan’s call. Maggie-Pie needs you Mitch… and maybe you need Mulligan’s Mill.”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” As I hung up, I heard him singing Achy Breaky Heart, as though he was now on a mission to
find the perfect annoying song to change the channel in my head.
Above me, more and more flakes of snow fluttered down from the city skyline.
As I reached Central Park, tourists stopped and snapped what they considered a picture-perfect, winter-wonderland in
New York. I saw something different. I saw another day coming where I’d feel more and more distant from the dreams I once
had, drifting toward a future as uncertain as it was unwanted.
Whatever tomorrow held, it was not the future I had dreamed of.
Looking back, I struggled to remember the actual event in real time. In my mind I could see the crowds and the Olympic
skating rink before me. I could see the cameras and the reporters, and the judges and the enormous screens suspended from the
ceiling of the arena. I could feel the nervous hammer-fall of my heart and hear the music as it started playing.
It wasn’t the usual choice of music for a figure skating competition. I was, after all, considered the rebel amongst my rivals.
I was the dark horse from Northern Wisconsin thrown in amongst the purebreds of the field. While the skaters from Russia and
China and Norway and Germany chose classics such as Ravel’s Bolero or Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, I wanted
something to really wow the crowd, something as unique and bold as my moves, something that the Winter Olympics had never
seen before.
As Elton John’s Rocket Man started to play and I skated onto the ice, I felt the hopes and dreams of my entire nation— from
New York to Seattle and everywhere in between, including the six hundred inhabitants of my hometown of Mulligan’s Mill—
resting on my shoulders.
Everyone was expecting greatness.
They were expecting gold.
They were expecting a moment in sports history that nobody would forget.
And that’s exactly what I gave them… a painful, humiliating, soul-crushing moment everyone would remember forever.
Everyone but me.
That was the irony of it all… that the one person who lived through it, was the one person who had blocked it all out.
All I could remember was the first twenty-two seconds before the fall.
I remembered skating onto the ice.
I remembered the moment I launched myself into the air.
And then I remembered… him.
Gage Channing… the man who shattered my heart.
As I skated onto the rink— ready to take on the greatest challenge of my life and win— the thought of him suddenly,
randomly, uninvitedly darted through my head, shot through my chest like an arrow made of ice.
I saw his face, his shimmering eyes.
I felt his skin, his kiss.
I relived the moment he turned his back on me… the day he broke me…
After that, I remembered nothing.
I couldn’t recall the three-and-a-half axel I performed mid-air.
Nor could I remember landing back onto the ice… and the buckling of my ankle… before crashing onto my side, sliding all
the way across the arena and slamming into the side barrier, every moment caught on camera to be replayed over and over and
over again, accompanied by the commentary that woke me from my sleep almost every morning.
My name is Mitch Winton.
When I was a skater, people knew me as Mitch ‘Wings’ Winton.
They used to love me.
But since the fall seven years ago, if anyone ever does recognize me— which is a longshot, given the extreme efforts I go to
in order to keep a low profile— they don’t call me Wings anymore.
Because they all saw the broadcast, over and over and over again.
I guess they should change his nickname from ‘Wings’ to ‘Broken Wings’.
No, the future ahead of me was far from the future I had always dreamed of. As was the present, for that matter.

Briskly I crossed East 59 th and headed into the park, making my way to Wollman Rink where I worked, bracing myself for the
barrage of children and parents and lovers who took to the ice, fulfilling their dreams of skating in Central Park while I manned
the skate-hire booth, handing over pair after pair of stinky used skates.
“What size are you after?” was the question I asked all day long.
Occasionally when someone fell on the ice and the First Aid attendant was busy tending to someone else, I’d temporarily
close the skate-hire booth, grab the back-up kit and skate onto the rink to help out.
When I heard the wail of a kid and looked to see the First Aid guy was already busy helping a woman with an ankle injury
off the ice, I scanned the arena till I spotted a young girl nursing her elbow while her father tried to calm her.
“Sorry folks,” I said to the couple I was about to serve. “I’ll be back in a minute. Duty calls.”
I set the Closed sign on the counter, snatched up the back-up First Aid kit then stepped into my skates and glided out over
the ice.
“Hey there, are you okay?” I asked as I slid to a halt on one knee beside the girl and her father.
“What does it look like?” cried the girl angrily.
“You’ll be all right, baby,” said her father. “The man’s here to help. He’ll make everything better.”
“Where does it hurt?” I asked, to which the girl grunted and jabbed a left finger at her right elbow.
I rolled up the girl’s sleeve and saw a red bump, but nothing too bad. “I think you might be sore for a little while, but you’re
gonna be fine.” As I opened the kit and took out an ice pack, I tried to distract her from the pain. “So, tell me, do you like
skating?”
“I hate it. I fell over, didn’t I?”
Quickly I shelved my distraction technique and focused on the task at hand. As I held the pack against the bump, the girl
whimpered even louder while her father started looking at me curiously. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the moment
recognition set in.
“Say, I know you. You’re that guy. The skater. The one who fell, right?”
I held my breath a moment then released it silently. “Yeah, that’s me.” I quickly turned my attention back to the man’s
daughter. “How’s that pressure? Is the bump feeling better yet?”
The girl shook her head.
Her father nodded his. “Yeah, I thought that was you. Geez, that was one helluva dive you took.” He chuckled, keen to
relive my moment of notoriety.
“Daddy, what about me?” the girl pouted, demanding her father’s attention. “I fell too.”
“I know, sweetheart… but not as badly as this guy did, am I right? Hell, what did they call you again?”
“Wings,” I uttered reluctantly, knowing the question wasn’t going to go away until I answered it.
“No, it wasn’t that. It was Broken Wings. Yeah, that’s your name. Geez, how long ago was that, three years?”
“Seven.”
“That long ago, huh? Feels like yesterday. I remember watching it on the TV. I don’t normally give a rat’s ass about figure
skating… you know, that sort of thing is for housewives and queers, right? But you seemed like such a sure bet to win. I put
money on you, ya know.”
“Sorry about that.” I pressed the pack against the girl’s elbow a little too firmly.
“Ow, watch it! You’re hurting me!”
“Sorry.”
“You’re okay, sweetheart. Trust me, this guy took a worse tumble than you. It cost Daddy almost two hundred bucks. If he
was a decent sport, he’d pay me back.” The man looked at me and added, “Right, Broken Wings?”
“Look, I’m sorry you lost money on your bet.” I kicked myself for the need to apologize for something that hurt me a lot
more than it hurt him. “Why don’t I help you both off the ice? We don’t want your daughter to take another fall on that elbow.”
“Sure. Then maybe you might wanna talk to your boss about a refund,” the man suggested. “Your crash-and-burn moment at
the Olympics might have cost me two hundred big ones, but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna pay money to have my daughter fall
over on this stupid rink. This ice is a hazard. Anyone could slip on it.”
“Sir, it’s an ice-skating rink.”
“I don’t care. I want my money back. Or would you prefer I sued your ass?”
I held my breath again, then let it escape as I said, “Let me see what I can do.”

When we were kids, my big sister Maggie loved breakfast cereal. It wasn’t like she had a favorite or anything. In fact, she
didn’t care whether she was tearing open a box of Apple Jacks or Corn Flakes or Cap’n Crunch. All she cared about was the
prize inside. Sometimes it was a tiny plastic toy, sometimes it was a baseball card… it didn’t matter what it was. All that
mattered was the fact that it was collectible.
Maggie was a collector.
She always had been.
The frustrating thing about that was the constant fear that one day Maggie would cross that fine line between collector and
hoarder, leaving me to conduct a family intervention which— given the fact that I was the only family she had left— placed a
shitload of pressure on me to clean up the mess and get her on track.
Seeing the name of Doc Morgan appear on my phone’s caller ID was a not-so-pleasant reminder of this.
“Fuck,” I whispered to myself.
I was on the subway home, once again ready to lock the door to my tiny Brooklyn apartment and leave the world behind for
another night. If I needed an excuse to send the call to message bank, the rumble of the train and the screech of its brakes was as
good a reason as any.
I put the phone back into my jacket pocket and kept my eyes down, as I always did on the subway. The incident with the
man and his daughter at the rink earlier in the day was exactly why I tried to keep my face hidden as much as possible. It was
easier in winter. I would keep the hood of my jacket low over my brow. I would keep my chin tilted down. I would look at the
shoes people wore. My dad told me you could tell if someone was born to fly by the shape of their shoes.
“If a foot is big and lazy and a little too comfortable, it’ll turn a shoe into a run-down old home and never leave it,” he used
to say. “The shoe will sag around the sides and holes will let the rain and snow in. Those are the feet of someone who’ll never
leave the ground. But if a shoe keeps its shape, if the toe stays pointed and the heel holds strong, then inside that shoe is a foot
built for speed. That’s a foot made for flying.”
 When Dad told me this, he wasn’t actually talking about people taking to the skies. He was talking about people taking to
the ice.
He saw skating and flying as one and the same.
He wasn’t wrong.
Every time he took me out to the frozen lake to practice— morning and night, before school and after school and all
weekend long— I would keep my eyes glued to my dad’s skates as he showed me how to loop and edge-jump and camel-spin.
Those skates of his were old and tough, hand-me-downs from my grandfather, but through the years they had kept their shape.
His feet had learned to fly in them, and in them he had taught me how to fly too.
I wondered whether those old skates were still hanging up on the back of my bedroom door back home, the same home in
which Maggie still lived.
The train lurched.
The brakes squealed around a bend and the wheels bumped along the tracks.
Riding the subway was nothing like flying.
Very few things were in this world.

The first message he left said: “Mitch, it’s Doc Morgan. Can you please give me a call back when you get this message? In
case you don’t remember me, it’s Doc Morgan… from Mulligan’s Mill.”
As I listened to his message and found some cold leftover pizza in the fridge, I wondered if the doc had honestly thought I’d
forgotten who he was. Hell, of course I remembered who Doc Morgan was. Up until the day I left Mulligan’s Mill in the quiet
of a winter’s dawn all those years ago— without saying a single goodbye to anyone, not even my sister— I had spent my entire
life visiting Doc Morgan. He plastered up my arm when I was seven and fell on some rocks near Rainbow Falls. He stitched
up the cut above my brow when I was fifteen and fell on the ice something bad. He gave me my first condoms when I was
eighteen and slinked into his office pretending to have a cold, only to ask him about the risks of catching something if I met
someone I liked.
“You mean, like a cold?” he had asked.
“No,” I said coyly. “I mean… sexually.”
I never told him that person was Gage Channing, captain of the school hockey team no less. Hell, I never even told Bud
about my ridiculous, insatiable, impossible love for Gage. I kept it all to myself. It was my secret.
A secret that sent me soaring into the clouds.
Talk about flying. When I was eighteen, my heart took off from the ground every time I saw him.
Thinking about those days made me even more terrified of returning to the Mill.
“Mitch, it’s Doc Morgan again. From Mulligan’s Mill,” said the second message from the doc. “I’m calling about your
sister, Maggie. Sheriff Garrett Gates has asked me to contact you, and if I’m honest this call is probably somewhat overdue. I
know you left the Mill to find your own space out there in the world, but I’m concerned that Maggie needs a little help lately.
I’m not sure if you’re aware, but she’s had something of a run-in with your neighbor, Mrs. Roper. And it’s not just that I’m
worried about. For some time I’ve been concerned that her… how should I put this… accumulation of unnecessary items is
getting out of hand. On my last house call I could barely get through the front door. I’m worried she may be anxious…
somewhat depressed. Of course, she doesn’t show it, that’s just your sister, always pretending everything is peachy keen. But I
think it would do her good if you could find the time to come home and visit. I know it’s been a while, but I think she’d like to
see you. I think she needs you. Please call me when you get this message.”
I shoved the phone into my pocket. Somewhere outside I listened to a siren cut the night.
I banged the old radiator on the wall, not sure why I even bothered since it hadn’t given out a puff of heat all winter.
I headed into my bedroom and from under my bed I pulled out a shoebox and opened the lid. Inside were the only things I
had managed to grab from my room back in Mulligan’s Mill before I fled like a fugitive in the night— a handful of unframed
photos that I treasured, photos that I gazed at countless times during my loneliest nights in New York:
Me and Dad by Lassiter’s Lake, the place where we practiced every day in winter;
Our mom when she was young, years before she died, playing with me and Maggie on the front porch, me in diapers and
Maggie-Pie with a towel pegged around her neck pretending to be a superhero;
And Gage, the one and only photo I had of him, snapped on a secret picnic under Brannigan’s Bridge, the old red covered
bridge on the outskirts of Mulligan’s Mill that seemed like the only place in the world where our love could thrive, there in the
shadow of the bridge.
That’s where we used to kiss and fool around and watch the river trickle by as though it was the only bystander and witness
to our love, catching the briefest glimpse of our forbidden smalltown romance before journeying downstream and out of sight.
We explored each other’s young bodies as we listened to the cars cross the bridge overhead, the weight of them making the
boards thump and groan, their passengers oblivious to the school skating champion and the captain of the hockey team falling in
love under the bridge.
We made promises to always be together, to tell the world— or at least our little hometown— that this skating dreamer and
that hockey hero were in love and would be forever.
But forever is an easy promise to make when you’re young…
And reality is full of nasty surprises when it all falls apart.
I flipped the photos in my hand, looking at Mom and Maggie-Pie in her makeshift cape, ready to save the world.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket.
I dialed Doc Morgan’s number.
As I listened to the ringtone, waiting for him to answer, I thought about Maggie and God-knows-what was piled up inside
the front door.
It was over a thousand miles from here to home.
When I first left Mulligan’s Mill, the trip to New York felt like a long, long way.
I had a feeling the way back would feel even longer.
I guess I was about to find out.
 G AG E

THE DREAM WAS ALWAYS the same, a painful instant replay of the worst moment of my life. It never changed, it never strayed
away from the fateful events of that night, no matter how many times I wished for a happier ending to my last encounter with
Wings.
It was a warm summer’s twilight, a chorus of softly chirping crickets the only soundtrack to our last night together.
We were eighteen and every dream we had seemed within our reach.
He had been training for the Olympics since he was a kid, conquering the state and national figure skating trials with his
sights set on gold.
I was captain of a hockey team on a winning streak, already catching the attention of several Ivy League schools who were
getting ready to dangle scholarships in front of me.
Everything seemed so perfect… except for one thing.
Everybody in town knew who we were…
But nobody knew about us.
“I feel like telling everyone.” He said as we lingered a short distance from the glow of the streetlamp outside my house.
“Sometimes all I wanna do is shout it from the rooftops.”
We stood close together. His voice was quiet, tender. Our hands were loosely entwined, his fingers lightly touching and
toying with mine, as though coyly exploring the chance of a tighter clasp. I could feel the warmth of him. I fought every urge to
reach down and grab him by the belt, desperate to pull him against me and plant a kiss on those beautiful lips of his.
But I couldn’t.
We’d been out all day, and the thought of my folks finding out about us made me edge away from Wings, just an inch. Not to
mention the fact that his words scared me. “You know we can never tell anyone,” I said in a whisper.
Instantly he looked bewildered. “Never?”
“Well… maybe not ‘never’… but not now.”
“Gage, I wanna be with you. Always. We can’t keep this a secret forever.”
“I know. And I wanna be with you too.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, of course I’m sure.”
“Then why did you just take another step away from me? Gage?”
I forced my feet to stop shuffling backward for a moment and leaned forward, lowering my already quiet voice. “Wings,
you and me, we’ve both got big plans for the future. Plans we can’t fuck up.”
“Are you saying that you and me is a fuck-up?”
This time he was the one who took a step backward. I panicked and caught him by the hand, holding him tight in my grip.
“No. That’s not what I’m saying at all. I just think… I think we need to plan things out, choose our timing carefully. There’ll be
a time for us, I promise. You trust me, don’t you?”
He sighed and a smile slowly appeared on his face, washing away the look of fear and apprehension that had threatened to
turn a beautiful night into the scene of a fight. “Of course I trust you.”
He moved his face toward me.
I’d never wanted to kiss him more than in that moment.
I needed him to trust me.
I wanted to protect him.
I wanted to be with him.
I couldn’t stop myself a second longer.
I pulled him against me.
 I pressed my lips against his.
I melted at the groan of pleasure that vibrated through his entire body.
And then—
“Gage?”
I broke away from the kiss so quickly that I stumbled a step backward.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw my father standing under the porchlight, a confused and furious look on his face. As I
stumbled he glared at Wings. “Mitch? Is that you? Did you just…”
“Push me!” I blurted before I knew what I was saying, my brain reeling in a desperate bid to change the narrative of what
my father had just seen. “He pushed me!”
As if to prove my point as fact, I lunged at Wings, pushing him so hard he staggered backward and tripped, landing on his
back on my father’s freshly-mown lawn.
“Gage? What the fuck?”
“I said get away from me!” I shouted at him, my fabrication suddenly taking on a life of its own as my father stood
witnessing the incident. “I said fuck off! Never come near me again, you hear!”
I could see the shocked and shattered look in Wings’ eyes and I caught my breath.
In that tear-filled gaze, I could see his heart break.
In the reflection of his eyes, I could see myself; a father’s son, too scared to have the courage to speak the truth… and I felt
the razor-sharp splinters of my own heart break as it spliced me apart on the inside.
“Mitch,” I whispered.
“No,” he said, shaking his head and scrambling to his feet.
“Gage!” my father shouted from the porch. “What the hell’s going on?”
I felt my balance give way.
I glanced over at Wings to see him run away into the night, the thump-thump-thump of his sneakers on the street almost as
fast as the clunk-thud-crack of my fracturing heart.
I saw the stars fall.
I watched the night come crashing down.
And I knew I’d never see him again.
At least, that’s what I thought.

“Uncle Gage! Uncle Gage! Uncle Gage!”

The scream was shrill, the kind of exasperated cry for help that Ginny made when she had been trying her damnedest to
wake me from her bedroom, which anyone could be forgiven for thinking was near-to-impossible given the hours I worked and
the levels of exhaustion I constantly felt.
But that shrill scream… it always worked in the end.
I sat bolt upright in bed, the dream of that fateful night washing away like dirty sink water, leaving its stains on me as it
always did. “Ginny! Are you okay?”
I leapt out of bed, pulling on my boxer shorts and sprinting down the hall to my niece’s room.
The ceiling moved from shadows cast by all her mobiles, light from her bedside lamp illuminating the room. Model planes,
helicopters, space shuttles and rocket ships swirled and bobbed, hanging from fishing wire to give the illusion that they were
actually flying. That was her thing… flying machines of all descriptions. If it had propellors or wings or a booster engine,
Ginny was pretty much obsessed with it. Some of them hung lower than others and as I hurried into the room, I had to duck to
avoid an old Tiger Moth plane here or a pointy-nosed Concorde there.
“Ginny? What’s wrong?”
“I had a nightmare.”
My eleven-year-old niece had propped herself up in bed as best she could without my help. Above her, the mobility hoist
swung in time with the mobile flying machines.
I noticed the window was open an inch.
Then I noticed how cold it was in her room.
“Jesus, Ginny. It’s minus a thousand degrees outside. What have I told you about leaving the window open?”
“It gets too stuffy in here.”
“You’ll freeze to death.”
“I like the sound of the wind in the trees by the lake.”
 “Clearly not enough to stop you from having nightmares.”
I shut the window and drew the curtains, then sat beside her on her bed. “So, what was it this time? Did the moon crash into
the Earth? Did aliens take over the world and try to suck everyone’s brains out through their nostrils again?”
“If they ever tried, I’d commandeer the Space Shuttle Atlantis and blast those beady-eyed baddies back to Mars.”
“Good for you.” I gently pushed a few strands of hair away from her forehead. “So, if Earth is safe, what’s with the
nightmare?”
She lowered her chin and shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Come on. You can tell me.”
She shook her head.
“You don’t wanna talk about it? I get that. But you know the thing about nightmares is, if you talk about them when you’re
awake, they don’t come back when you go to sleep again.”
Crossing her arms she quietly conceded. “Fine. If you must know, I dreamed… I dreamed that…” She searched for the
words she wanted to use. “I dreamed that the same thing that happened to Mom and Dad happened to you.”
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what she was talking about.
A car crash.
“Oh geez. Ginny… baby. I’m fine. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. You and me, we’re a team. We’re always gonna
be here for each other, ya hear?”
“Even when I go to college?” she asked.
“We’ll talk on the phone every night, I promise.”
“Even when I get a job at NASA or the Department of Defense? I’ll be in charge of Aviation before I’m twenty-five, at
least that’s the plan.”
“If you’re that important, we’ll probably need to talk twice a day so you can brief me on everything that’s going on. We’ll
need to Skype so we can see each other’s faces.”
She gave me one of those ‘you’re a dummy, Uncle Gage’ sideways glances. “Skype won’t exist by then. We’ll probably use
holographic images to communicate. I’ll probably be heading up that department too.”
“Well then, you can teach me how to use the holo… gizmo… phone or whatever it’ll be called in the future. Hopefully I
won’t break it.”
She shrugged and gave a mischievous smile. “Maybe by then you’ll have someone living with you who might be able to
read an instruction manual.”
“Who? Mrs. Kozlowski?” I was only joking. I had no intention of keeping Ginny’s cranky carer around once Ginny was
finally out in the world, living her dreams.
Ginny chuckled. Finally, an uncle joke she found amusing. “There’s no way you and Mrs. Kozlowski can live together
without killing each other. The question is who’d murder who first? My money’s on Mrs. Kozlowski… in the kitchen… with
some wickedly ghoulish goulash.”
“Now, now. Mrs. Kozlowski does a fine job taking care of us.” I wasn’t about to admit how I really felt.
“Oh, she’ll take care of us all right. Remind me to put that on your tombstone.”
“Enough. It’s time to go back to sleep.” I helped her nuzzle back beneath the covers, tucked her in tight and gave her a kiss
on the forehead. “No more nightmares. Remember I love you.”
As I headed for the door, she said— “Uncle Gage?”
“What’s up?”
“You know I love you too.”
I smiled. “I sure do, kiddo. I sure do.”
 M ITC H

THE SNOW STAYED at bay for the entire flight from JFK to Milwaukee, and even managed to hold off long enough for me to catch
the flight from Milwaukee to Chippewa Valley Regional Airport in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
It wasn’t until I caught the bus to the corner of Water Street and Fifth that the heavens opened and a late winter flurry
swirled down the frozen Eau Claire intersection. With a chuff of its hydraulic brakes, the bus stopped and I shouldered my
backpack, stepping out into the cold.
It was the late afternoon and there was nobody on the icy streets, which suited me just fine. Across the road I could see a
handful of patrons inside Dorothy’s Diner, but from this distance— with the snowy veil covering the day— I was pretty sure
nobody would make out who I was.
I kept my head down just in case.
I glanced at my watch and placed bets in my head that Maggie would be late, wondering how long I could stick it out in the
snow before I’d need to find warmth somewhere.
For a moment I pondered the idea of seeking shelter at Dorothy’s, getting a coffee while I waited, hoping and praying that
the waitress or gossipy housewives or some old timer eating a slice of pie at the counter wouldn’t recognize me.
I weighed up the risk.
I blew on my hands then buried them deeper into my jacket pocket to keep my fingers from freezing off.
Then suddenly I heard it—
A distant horn blaring as though it belonged on Fifth Avenue in New York, not Fifth Avenue Eau Claire, scaring a handful of
unimpressed crows off the snow-heavy telephone wires. The old Chevy to which the horn belonged materialized through the
gray of the day, sliding precariously left and right down the icy, empty streets.
As the vehicle neared and the horn got louder, I could also hear Maggie whooping and screaming excitedly out the open
driver’s window.
“Oh Maggie-Pie,” I uttered to myself, unable to deny my grin. “Some things never change.”
The headlights flashed… as though I might have had trouble spotting her approach.
“Mitchy-Moo! Mitch, it’s me!” she shouted for all the world to hear, her head appearing out the window, her eyes blinking
back the snow and her mouth spread in the biggest smile. “Mitch, it’s me! Maggie-Pie!”
“I know, I can see you,” I laughed to myself, glancing at the diner across the street where the patrons had heard the
commotion outside and were beginning to gather at the windows. I pressed my chin to my chest and pulled the hood of my
jacket lower over my face.
That’s when Maggie braked and the Chevy slid to a halt against the curb in front of me.
Barely a moment before the vehicle stopped, the rusty hinges of the driver’s door gave an arthritic groan and Maggie rolled
out of the car like an amateur stuntwoman. “Mitchy-Moo! It’s me!”
Fuck, I had to admit, I’d missed her. “I know, I can see you! You’re right in front of me!”
Screaming with delight she slid and hobbled across the ice, rounding the hood of the Chevy with her arms outstretched.
Maggie was kinda the opposite body shape to me. I was tall and lean, whereas my sister was short and, as she liked to put it,
the princess of puppy chow. But the biggest thing about Maggie was her sense of love and joy when she got all excited.
Like now.
“Oh my God! Eeeeeeeeeeeee! Come here, little brother! Let me hug the heck outta you right now! Oh my God, look how
skinny you are! Don’t they feed you in New York?”
Before I could answer, Maggie seized me in a bearhug, wrapping her arms around my waist and squeezing so hard I
actually wheezed as my feet left the ground.
“Maggie, Maggie, Maggie!” I rasped for air. “It’s good to see you too. But can you please put me down? I kinda wanna get
in the car and get out of here as soon as we can.”
 She followed my gaze to the onlookers in the diner across the street. “You think they recognize you?”
“I don’t particularly want to stay to find out.”
“Stupid Eau Claire stare bears,” Maggie said, giving them a fake, friendly wave. “They’re just jealous because they don’t
live in Mulligan’s Mill. Don’t worry, I’ll give them something to stare at.”
Before I could stop her, Maggie turned her waving hand around then flipped the bird at our disgusted onlookers.
While Maggie cackled with delight and blew her spectators a raspberry, I gasped in horror and grabbed for her hand.
Unfortunately she managed to dodge me. I lost my balance, slipped in the snow and landed flat on my ass in front of everyone
in the diner.
My sister rolled her eyes at me. “Well now they’re definitely gonna remember who you are.”
I let out a sigh of steam and asked myself for the hundredth time— What the hell was I doing back here?

“So, tell me everything. How the heck are you? What’s been happening? How’s the Big Apple? Do people still call it that? I
hope so, ’cause I think it’s the cutest nickname. Wait. Stop. Shut up, don’t answer, I just gotta—” Without saying another word
Maggie hammered the buttons on the car heater with her fist… then slapped them… then pounded the dash like it was a jukebox
that refused to play her favorite song. “Sorry, Dad’s old car is starting to pack it in. The heat’s not so good these days, but
sometimes if I hit it just right—”
With one more bang on the dash, the Chevy’s heater spluttered to life and coughed out a burst of warm air.
Maggie grinned triumphantly. “There you go! What I tell ya? So where were we?”
I didn’t want to talk about me.
I hadn’t wanted to talk about myself in seven years.
I seized the chance to turn the attention to her. “New York is boring. Tell me about you. How are you? How’s everything at
home? I mean, your home. It’s your home now, not mine.”
“What? What kinda crazy talk is that, Mitch? Has the Big Apple made you cuckoo in the head already? Of course it’s your
home too. It’s our home, Mitchy-Moo. It’ll always be our home. I bet that’s all the pastrami people eat in New York that affects
their brains. I read somewhere they put a chemical in it that gives you Alzheimer’s or amnesia or something. Do you need to
see Doc Morgan while you’re here? He turned sixty last month. Can you believe that? I made him a cake, but I ended up eating
it myself. I put too many eggs in, made it taste like rubber. He wouldn’t have liked it anyways. Come to think of it, I should
have given it to Mrs. Roper. Maybe the old crow might have choked on it.” Maggie cackled, then suddenly she thought aloud—
“That reminds me, I need to yank the nails out of her door and window frames. I boarded up her house, but you know about that
already. Doc Morgan told me he called you. He worries too much. I think it’s his age. He turned sixty last month. I baked him a
cake. Are you hungry? I bet you’re starving. Boy, do I have a surprise waiting for you at home.”
We’d barely cleared the outskirts of Eau Claire and already I was exhausted. I’d almost forgotten that conversations with
Maggie were like runaway trains that had a mind of their own. Sometimes they ran on a loop. Sometimes the destination was
always miles from the start. Either way, you never knew when it was going to derail and crash into a snowbank.
Speaking of wrecks…
“So, how’s the house?” I asked cautiously.
“You mean, our house.”
“Yes, our house. How is it? Does it need any maintenance? Need me to fix anything while I’m here?”
My sister, the master of conversational detours, deftly switched tracks without answering the question. “Say, how long are
you staying for anyway? Is this just a quick visit or are you planning on staying a while, because you know you’re welcome to
stay as long as you want. I even cleaned your room.”
“You did?”
“Sure.” She shrugged. “A little. I got a few things going on in there that I didn’t wanna move.”
“Things? What things?”
Another shrug. “Oh, you know… things. A few bits and pieces here, a little doodinkus there—”
“Why do you use that word?”
“What word?”
“Doodinkus. We’re not from Nebraska.”
“I like it. I think it’s the cutest. It’s the perfect description for a… doodinkus.”
“I get the feeling the house is going to be full of doodinkuses. Please tell me I’m wrong.”
“Don’t worry yourself about these things. It’ll affect your brain, like too much pastrami.”
“But I am worried. What kind of doodinkuses are we talking about here?”
 “I don’t know. This and that. Practical things, mostly. Mike at work lets me take home all the spare things he no longer has a
use for.”
“You mean car parts? You take home spare parts from Mike’s mechanic shop? Like what?”
“Like I said… just things. Rivets. Bolts. Spark plugs. Handles off old car doors. Bud says I don’t need all that stuff, but you
never know when you’re gonna need a handle for a car door, right? Am I right? I mean, there was that time when we had that
big storm and a tree branch fell right next to the car. Bang! Thud! Boom! That right there is the perfect example of when you
need a spare door handle.”
“The branch hit the door handle?”
“No, but it came close. But if it had’ve hit the car, guess who would have had a replacement door handle to fix things?
Huh? That’s right… me.”
“You can’t keep collecting things, Maggie-Pie.”
“Collecting things comes in very handy, thank you very much mister. When old Mr. Spillane needed a new weathervane
cock because Harry didn’t have any left at the hardware store, who found one for him in the shed? Me. When Mrs. Matheson
went searching for a Filofax-thingy-mabobby to keep track of all her medication dos and don’ts, can you guess who found one
at the back of the kitchen cupboard? Me. And when Gage Channing was looking for a pair of Walkie Talkies, who the heck do
you think found exactly what he was looking for stashed under your old bed. You remember Gage Channing, right? You went to
school with him. Captain of the hockey team. Remember?”
I felt my stomach knot and my throat went dry.
“You remember Gage, right?” Maggie pressed. “Do you still keep in touch with him?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t know he was still in town.”
“Oh, he moved away for a little while. Tried a coaching job in Minneapolis but he had to move back suddenly. A sad story
really.”
“What happened? Wait… I don’t wanna know. He’s still in Mulligan’s Mill?”
“He moved back about a year ago. He keeps mostly to himself now, what with—”
“Say, you’re right, I’m starving.” I had to change the subject. My pounding chest couldn’t take one more mention of Gage’s
name. “What surprise have you got waiting for me at home.”
Maggie beamed and her eyes lit up with excitement. “Oh my God, only the best food on the face of the planet!”
I knew exactly what she was talking about, and as my knotted stomach turned a little, Maggie-Pie and I both said… with
very different levels of enthusiasm—
“Puppy chow!”
 G AG E

“I HEARD A RUMOR,” Walt said casually.

I was sorting through a box of screws on the counter of Harry’s Hardware store, trying to separate the six-inchers from the
eight-inchers that had somehow gotten mixed up in the batch that came from the wholesaler, when old Walt looked down from
his stepladder where he was stacking sample tins of paint on a shelf. “Walt, I’m concentrating here. Besides, you know you
shouldn’t listen to rumors. No good ever comes of listening to rumors.”
Walt decided to ignore my advice. “I heard a rumor that Broken Wings is coming back to town.”
I physically flinched and my hand hit the box, knocking it off the counter and sending hundreds of screws tinkling across the
concrete floor of the hardware shop. “Oh shit.”
Atop his stepladder, Walt chuckled, sounding like a chicken with that weird laugh of his. “Well now that’s a fine mess
you’ve made. Best get it cleaned up before Harry gets here.”
“Too late, Harry’s already here,” said the booming voice of Harry as his hulking bear-like frame appeared in the back
entrance of the store. “What’s this I hear about a mess?”
“Don’t look at me,” said Walt, slowly climbing back down his stepladder, his old bones practically creaking on his way
down. “Butterfingers over there was the one who screwed things up… literally.” He clucked with laughter again. “One moment
I was telling him I heard a rumor about Broken Wings coming back to town… the next Gage is giving my cousin Clara the Klutz
a run for her money.”
“Wings is coming home?” Harry asked. “I kinda like that kid. Damn, I haven’t seen him in years.”
“Seven,” I muttered before I could stop myself. Quickly I crouched to pick up the screws.
Walt cupped a hand behind his ear to hear better. “What was that?”
“I said it’s been seven years. Seven years since Wings left.”
Harry crouched beside me and helped me scoop up screws. “Has it been that long? Geez, time flies, don’t it?”
Not for me it hadn’t. Time had almost ground to a halt in those seven years. Ever since Wings had left, I felt like fate had
been slowly chipping away at what was left of my heart.
Once upon a time, everything seemed so easy.
But now my life was far from what I thought it would be. I was supposed to be a hockey star. I was supposed to be loved. I
was supposed to be living the perfect life. But there I was, working three part-time jobs in my hometown to try to scrape
together enough money to put food on the table and pay a carer to look after my eleven-year-old niece while I was at work.
I couldn’t help but think that the day I ruined things with Mitch… I ruined all chance of hope and happiness in my own life.
Then again, I only had myself to blame.
“Gage? Gage, are you with us?”
Harry snapped his fingers in front of my face. “What? Sure, boss. What was that you said?”
“I said once we get these screws cleaned up, I need your muscles to help me unload the timber from the trailer out back.”
“Oh crap, I’m sorry boss, I can’t. I need to get going early today, Mrs. Kozlowski has an appointment and needs me to look
after Ginny till my shift at the Barnyard tonight.”
Harry scratched his bushy beard. “Shit, that’s right, you told me that this morning. I forgot.”
“Never you mind, Harry,” chimed in Walt. “These guns will come to the rescue.” Walt rolled up a sleeve to show off a
skinny bicep.
Harry and I both said at the same time, “No, Walt.”
“Last time you tried to lift something you put your back out for a week,” continued Harry. “You’re lucky I still let you up
that stepladder.”
“It’s only got three steps!” exclaimed Walt. “I may be old but I ain’t dead yet.”
“You will be if you try to lift that timber. Do you really want another trip to see Doc Morgan?” Harry knew how much this
question antagonized Walt.
The old-timer wrinkled up his already wrinkled face. “Don’t even think about it. You know I can’t stand that crazy old
quack.”
“Then behave yourself and help us pick up these damn screws, would you?”
As Walt groaned and clunkily crouched beside us, I turned to Harry. “Can the timber wait till morning? I can get here early.
Mrs. Kozlowski can look after Ginny’s breakfast.”
“Sure thing. Now go, scoot. Ginny needs you.” Harry shooed me away with one of his big paws.
I scooped the last of the screws into the box then gave an appreciative grin, pulling off my apron with Harry’s Hardware
embroidered on the chest. “Thanks boss. I owe you one.”
“No, you don’t. Just give that niece of yours a hug from her Uncle Harry.”
“Uncle Harry?” clucked Walt. “You two ain’t even related.”
“Ginny’s part of my found family,” Harry said matter-of-factly. “And like it or not, so are you, old-timer.”
I folded up my apron and stashed it under the counter. “I’d love to stay for family chats, but I gotta get moving. I’ll see you
both tomorrow.”
“Bright and early,” Harry called after me as I raced out the door.
“You betcha, boss.”

Two years after Wings left Mulligan’s Mill, my older sister and her husband were driving through the snow on the last night of
a family vacation to Michigan with their daughter Ginny, who was only six years old at the time. On an icy bend my brother-in-
law lost control of the car. He and my sister never arrived home.
Ginny spent almost three months in hospital in Eau Claire, where my parents moved to take care of her. She spent another
year in various treatment centers around the state, surrounded by therapists who did everything they could to try to get her to
walk again. One by one, the experts conceded that Ginny would be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life.
My mother and father stayed in Eau Claire to raise her, stepping into the parental role despite their age. I left Mulligan’s
Mill as well and moved in with them, throwing away a hockey scholarship at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, much to
my father’s dismay.
I got a part-time job in Eau Claire as a hockey coach to help pay the bills.
I made myself useful around the house.
I put together the hoist over Ginny’s bed.
I built the ramp up to the front porch.
I read bedtime stories to my niece as I watched my mother become increasingly weary.
Then one day, my mother became ill.
The diagnosis was grim, and the cancer took her faster than any of us could have expected.
My father— the staunch, alpha-male patriarch with his traditional views on family values and gender roles— quickly fell
apart without my mother to take care of him.
I stepped in to become Ginny’s primary carer.
My father found himself directionless, lost, without a woman in his life.
While I took Ginny to her therapy appointments, my father introduced himself to the world of online dating, as though
meeting another partner was his only hope of survival.
He achieved his goal swiftly, bringing home a widowed evangelist named Krystal who wore way too much make-up. She
showed little interest in Ginny’s condition, instead focusing her efforts on rescuing my father from an existence she once
described as ‘emasculating, manically depressing and a distraction from allowing him to open his eyes to the ways of the
Lord’.
It wasn’t long before I told my father I was leaving Eau Claire… and I was taking Ginny with me.
He did not put up a fight. In fact, I’ll never forget his sigh of relief, his breath sweet with Krystal’s strawberry-scented
lipstick.
I returned with Ginny to Mulligan’s Mill, the only place I wanted to be because it reminded me of Wings.
As fate would have it, the old house on Lassiter’s Lake was up for sale after the recent passing of old Mrs. Whittaker who
had outlived her husband by only a few months.
The lake was where I’d fallen for Wings.
I’d practice hitting the puck at one end of its frozen surface, while Mitch’s dad trained him in figure skating at the other end.
Even on the days when I wasn’t practicing, I’d sneak up to the lake’s edge and watch from the shadows of the trees as Wings
skated tirelessly on the ice, like an eagle gliding through the skies, while his dad shouted to him from the snowy embankment to
‘keep that leg up’ or ‘lead into the spin with your toes, not your hips’ or ‘do you want to win silver or do you want to win
gold?’
I’d block out his father’s coaching and let Wings fill my vision.
I’d sit and watch until my feet froze in the snow and my cheeks went ruddy.
Needless to say, when I returned to Mulligan’s Mill, I bought the old Whittaker house on Lassiter’s Lake. It was a small
house, with a pokey little kitchen and only one bathroom. I couldn’t afford any major structural changes, but I made the basic
necessary renovations to accommodate mine and Ginny’s new life together.
I hired Mrs. Kozlowski— a no-nonsense, retired nurse— to look after Ginny while I spread my time between three jobs,
working the counter at Harry’s Hardware five days a week, delivering book purchases for Brooks’ Book Nook on the weekend,
and pulling beers at Aunt Bea’s Barnyard Bar most nights.
I was busy.
I was exhausted.
I grew up fast and felt older than my years.
But in all that time, learning to parent and juggling jobs and looking after Ginny— who became more and more sassy with
each passing day— I never stopped thinking about Wings.
I never stopped regretting what I’d done to him.
I never stopped wishing I could take back the hurt, no matter how much I knew we were through.
And then…
“I heard a rumor…”
The news from Walt had struck me like lightning, zapping me with volts of fear, excitement, dread, hope, shame, joy, guilt
and… yearning.
Oh yes, I yearned to see him…
Knowing I was probably the last person on Earth he wanted to see.
Bang, bang, bang.
I jumped in my seat, the seatbelt snatching across my chest.
“Mr. Channing!” I looked across to the frosted passenger window. “Mr. Channing, are you coming inside? I need to get to
my appointment pronto.”
Mrs. Kozlowski knocked again on the window of my parked pickup. I’d pulled up in the driveway and lost myself yet again
in thoughts of Wings, much to Mrs. Kozlowski’s annoyance. I quickly unclipped my belt and pushed open the door of my rusty
old Dodge truck.
I noticed Mrs. Kozlowski already had her coat on, her handbag hanging from the crook of one arm, ready to go.
“Dinner is in the oven,” she said, already waving me goodbye as she trudged toward her car, shouting instructions back to
me. “The new compression socks arrived and she hates them. She’s also been refusing to do her limb exercises all day. Oh and
there’s a home-school online tutorial on Jane Austen in fifteen minutes. She’s supposed to have read the first three chapters of
Sense and Sensibility and she’s barely even opened the book yet. Good luck with that! If it was algebra it’d be a different
story. Such a strange child.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Kozlowski. Can I just confirm you’ll be back before eight tonight so I can get to my shift at—”
“Oh, and before I forget… your last check bounced.”
“Oh shit, I’m so sorry. It’s payday tomorrow so—”
The door to Mrs. Kozlowski’s car slammed shut.
I took a deep breath as I watched her drive away.
From inside the house, I heard a scream. “Uncle Gage! We have an emergency!”
There were few words that made me pour on the speed like I was back on the ice, headed for a goal. But Ginny shouting for
help was something that moved me faster than a right winger in the Stanley Cup Finals.
I slid across the ice to the porch.
I pushed open the front door.
I skidded into the house. “Ginny! Where are you? What’s wrong?”
From the kitchen I heard Ginny’s voice. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong. She’s trying to make us eat boiled cabbage again!”
My shoulders slumped with relief as I plodded into the kitchen to see my eleven-year-old niece in her wheelchair, waving
away the steamy cabbage smells from the oven door that she held open in disgust. “O.M.G! It smells like wet diapers! I told
you she’s trying to kill us. Seriously, it’s gross! I am so not eating that… not again! Take it outside and offer it as a sacrifice to
the god of all things wrong… now!”
“Virginia Channing, calm down. It’s just dinner.”
“It’s not my dinner! Yugh! Can you please throw it in the garbage? Help me, Uncle Gage! You’re my only hope.”
“Stop quoting Star Wars and stop dissing other people’s attempts to look after you.”
 “Attempts to look after me? More like ‘attempts to kill me’.”
“Enough. We’re having boiled cabbage for dinner and that’s final. We can’t afford to let perfectly good food go to waste
around here.”
“Fine. But I think we need to agree to disagree on the definition of ‘perfectly good food’.”
“Less chit-chat about cabbage and more focus on Jane Austen, please. Don’t you have a tutorial in fifteen minutes? Have
you even done your homework?”
“Jane Austen is booooooooring! She wrote that book like eight hundred years ago. All of her books are about rich people
who had no jobs, no ambition and nothing to do all day except play cards and take walks in the garden. Do you know they spent
all morning getting dressed for their cucumber sandwich high teas, then spent all afternoon getting dressed for dinner parties
where all anyone ever did was tell secrets behind their fancy silk fans. How is reading that going to make me a better person?”
To a guy who worked three jobs and barely had enough time to sleep, I had to admit she had a point. Still, parenting
sometimes meant defying logic. “Jane Austen is all about romance. Maybe reading her books will help you find your someone
special someday.”
“Ha! Look who’s talking? Maybe you should be the one to read Sense and Sensibility.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. All I’m saying is, maybe I’m not the only one who needs a tutorial in romance novels.”
“Enough. Take yourself into your room, turn on your computer and could you please at least pretend you’ve read the first
three chapters of your novel?”
“Gah. This is child abuse, you know. I’d rather be building space rockets.”
“And I’d rather be sipping beer on a beach in Baja. But it ain’t happening. Now scoot. Vanish. Vamoose.”
“Vamoose? Oh my God, you really do act ancient sometimes.”
“Go!”
As she begrudgingly wheeled her way into her bedroom, I wondered whether I was the world’s worst poster boy for
twenty-seven-year-olds. Did I really act that ancient, or was I just damn tired all the time? One thing I did know… with Mitch
coming back to town… maybe sneaking a peek at Ginny’s copy of Sense and Sensibility wasn’t a bad idea after all.
I never learned my lesson in love the first time around.
Was there maybe hope for us once more?
I gulped nervously and felt queasy at the thought of it.
Or maybe it was just the smell of sweaty boiled cabbage that was making me nauseous.
Who knew?
 M ITC H

F ROM THE OUTSIDE, the house looked the same as it always had: a humble, single-story bungalow with a porch out front and a
garage and driveway on one side.
The snow wasn’t so high that it needed shoveling. Perhaps it had done earlier in the season, but as we turned into the drive
Maggie could pull right up to the front of the garage, no problems. Although—
“You’re too close to the garage door,” I said. It was the old kind that swung outward and lifted up. “Reverse back a little so
I can open it.”
Maggie just unbuckled her belt and cut the engine. “Oh, no bother. I like to park out here these days. It’s easier to get to the
house.”
“But there’s a door inside the garage that leads straight into the house.”
“I like parking out in the fresh air. Besides, I’ve got things in there.”
“Just a little doodinkus here and there, I’m guessing.”
“Something like that.” She must have seen the frustration on my face. “Okay, if you’re gonna look like Dad always looked
when he disapproved of something, I’m gonna need a pinky-promise from you that you won’t get mad at me.”
We hadn’t pinky-promised since we were kids. Normally we did it to hide things from our parents or cover up one of
Maggie’s disasters. All I knew was, when Maggie wanted a pinky-promise, it usually meant she was expecting to be in trouble
for something.
I took a deep breath. “Okay, then. A pinky-promise.”
“From Mitchy-Moo to Maggie-Pie.” She held out her little finger.
I nodded. “From Mitchy-Moo to Maggie-Pie.”
“Well you can’t just say it. Where the hell’s your pinky.”
I hooked my little finger around hers. “From Mitchy-Moo to Maggie-Pie. I promise.”
The words came out as a sigh. I was dearly hoping that Maggie’s need to collect things wasn’t as out of control as Mrs.
Roper had made it out to be, even though Bud and Doc Morgan had also hinted at the worst. I dearly hoped I would see walls
and floorboards when we walked in the door. I prayed I might find a few empty corners and identify one or two of Mom’s
favorite rugs on the floor where I last saw them seven years ago.
Unfortunately, my hopes fell apart at the seams just trying to get through the front door.
After jiggling her keys in the lock, Maggie had to put her shoulder into the door to get it to budge.
“I think it’s the hinges,” she tried to tell me. “I think the door’s kinda dropped and now it’s scraping on the floorboards.”
I gave the door a push to help her out. “Maggie, there’s something blocking the door on the other side.”
“There is? Oh, it must be that pile of old boxes. They’re just full of old papers and stuff. I was gonna store them in the
garage this weekend, I left them by the door to remind me.”
I gave the door a shove hard enough to poke my head into the hallway. “Maggie, there’s not just one pile of boxes in here.
There’s dozens.”
“Are there? I must have lost count, I was pretty busy cleaning up.”
I looked back at her and gave an unimpressed look. “Maggie-Pie, this isn’t about losing count of boxes. What’s going on?”
“What are you talking about, Mitch? There you go with your crazy talk again. Let’s just get inside, you won’t believe what I
found when I was cleaning up your room… Dad’s old skates.”
“I left Dad’s old skates hanging on the back of my bedroom door. They didn’t need to be ‘found’, they were always there in
plain sight.”
“Which is exactly where I found them, like I just told you. Now enough of the cranky-pants attitude. Just hurry up and open
the door, would ya?”
“I can’t. One of those piles of boxes has fallen against it.”
 “It must’ve happened when I pulled the door shut behind me.”
“Well we can’t get in this way. We’re gonna have to use the back door.”
“Yeah… no. That’s not really an option.”
“What do you mean?”
Maggie pinched up her nose and admitted, “I haven’t really used the back door for a few years.”
“Maggie, for God’s sake. What’s going on here?”
“Oh stop making such a fuss. I seem to remember you were rather good at climbing in and out of your bedroom window
when you wanted to see your friends late at night. Let’s just do that.”
She wasn’t wrong about me sneaking in and out of my bedroom in my late teens, but I wasn’t slinking off into the dark to
hang out with my friends. There was only one person I went to see. I always broke out of the house nervous and excited; I
always returned with my heart soaring and my smile immovable, locking away the secrets of another night spent with Gage as I
quietly closed my window and climbed back into bed before anyone even knew I was gone.
“When we get inside, we’re moving those boxes,” I told Maggie as I gave up my fight with the door. “We’re not just gonna
move them from the house to the garage. We’re gonna go through them one at a time and throw away anything we don’t need.
Agreed?”
I watched as Maggie fidgeted anxiously, stepping from one foot to the other. With a sudden smile she said, “Ooh, ooh, ooh.
You know what might be neat? If we got some shiny new boxes from the storage depot, you know, ones that ain’t so old and
won’t fall apart for a while. That way we don’t have to throw anything away, right? We don’t wanna throw away anything that
was important to Mom and Dad… right?”
I gave a frustrated sigh. “Let’s just get inside and see what we’re dealing with, shall we?”

What we were dealing with was a mess that spread far beyond the front hallway into the house.
As I hoisted myself through my old bedroom window, I quickly realized that almost every inch of the floor was taken up
with my stuff, as though my once neatly-packed closet and drawers had decided to empty themselves onto the floor or toss
themselves into boxes that were falling apart at the corners. My trophies and skating medallions were jutting out of some
cracked milk crates against one wall, my old schoolbooks made for a very tall and unstable tower leaning into a corner, while
directly beneath the window was a pile of all my old clothes, evidently removed from my dresser to make way for a ‘little
doodinkus here and there’.
“Why are all my clothes on the floor?” I yelled back to Maggie as I dangled from the open window, my upper torso inside
the room and my legs flailing outside.
“Ooh, did I tell you I found Dad’s skates?”
“I know already! I can see them hanging on the door.”
“You’d think he might have stashed them in his old footlocker in the garage, but no, there’s something else in there. Heaven
knows what. He clamped it up with a pair of padlocks and do you think I have a hope in hell of finding the darn key?”
“I don’t think you have a hope in hell of finding anything in this place! Look at my room. I thought you said you cleaned it.”
“No… yeah… no. I’m still sorting things out. You know what they say, before you make things tidy you gotta make a mess. I
think it was that Japanese lady.”
“Marie Kondo would never make this mess.”
“Stop fussing, we’ll get your clothes all cleaned up in a jiffy.”
“It’s not just my clothes. There are jars of screws on the floor, dozens of them. And a pile of brand new hubcaps. And…” I
had to hold onto the window sill to keep my balance as I leaned my head back and asked, “Is that a newspaper vending
machine in my room?”
“Old Man Raven thought it would be popular outside the General Store, but nobody could figure out how it worked. He
said he didn’t need it anymore.”
“And you did?”
“He sold it to me for a bargain. Only fifty bucks.”
“You paid fifty bucks for a vending machine that you keep in my old bedroom?”
“Maybe it was two hundred and fifty. I don’t really remember. Oh, did I tell you I found a great new recipe for tapioca in
one of Mom’s old recipe books?”
I rolled my eyes and dragged myself through the window, sliding down the soft dune of clothes and rolling onto the floor,
knocking over several jars of screws.
“We’ll talk about the vending machine later. Go back around to the front door. I’ll move the boxes.”
 “Okay,” Maggie called back through the window. “But just…”
She hesitated and didn’t finish her sentence.
I stuck my head out the window, my patience thinning. “Just what?”
Maggie took a deep breath. “Just… don’t get angry. Promise me you won’t get angry. You pinky-promised, remember?”
All I could do was sigh, already feeling overwhelmed by the situation I’d just walked into. “Oh Maggie-Pie.”

“Oh Maggie-Pie,” I muttered to myself, over and over, during the fifteen minutes it took me to make enough space in the
cluttered living room so as I could move the half-broken boxes blocking the door. Maggie had left a narrow, meandering path
from the kitchen to the living room, and another path from Dad’s old recliner to the television, shadowed by towers of junk on
either side, but apart from that the house was completely crammed full of crap:
Piles of empty Coke bottles and neatly folded cereal boxes and bundles of pamphlets;
Burnt-out lightbulbs and tea-stained mugs and long-dead pot plants;
Photoless picture frames and plastic bags filled with plastic bags and hundreds of shopping receipts stapled together;
Yellowed lampshades and used batteries and plastic coat hangers of all colors;
Busted shoelaces and empty fly spray cans and a pyramid of dog food tins with dust gathered on the still sealed lids.
After I managed to get the door open and let Maggie in, I pointed to the dog food. “You have a dog? Where is it?”
“Yeah… no. But there was this one stray a couple of years ago who came knocking on the door one night. I fed him for a
week or so but then I guess he decided to move on. You never know when he might come back though, right? Speaking of dog
food, you want some puppy chow? You said you were starving. I betcha you’d love some of Maggie-Pie’s puppy chow right
about now, huh?”
She turned for the path that led to the kitchen to run away from the subject, but I grabbed her by the shoulder and turned her
around to face me.
“Maggie, stop. Just stop. We need to talk about this.”
“About what?”
“About all this. All this stuff. I mean, I know you’ve always loved collecting things but this… Maggie this is a serious
problem.”
“Yeah… no… yeah… I know, it’s a mess. I keep meaning to clean it up, it’s just with work and everything it’s so hard to
find the time.”
“You are still going to work, right? Please tell me you’re still working.”
“Oh yeah, of course I’m still working. I love my job sorting parts and fixing stuff. Mike’s a great boss, he says one day I
could even make manager of the workshop. And I love working with Bud, although sometimes I get the feeling he’s looking for
a little more out of life. More than just mufflers and carburetors, if you know what I mean. Has he ever mentioned anything to
you, about following a dream doing something else? I think he’s got a dream in that head of his, he’s just not ready to set it free.
It’s good to have a dream, right… you of all people know that.” Maggie quickly pulled herself up. “Oh… not that you didn’t
make your dream come true… it was just… the fall wasn’t your fault…”
Maggie knew I hated talking about the fall. I guess she was a little rusty at avoiding that subject. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean
to…”
“It’s okay.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Let’s not talk about it. I just wanna stay focused on getting this place cleaned up.”
“Oh stop fussing, Mitchy-Moo. You don’t have to help me tidy up around here, you’re a guest here.”
“No, I’m not. This is my place too, you said it yourself. And I think it’s time I helped you clean it up.”
Maggie drew a deep breath. “Well… if you insist on helping… then I suppose… I guess that would be nice. But not today.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ve been traveling all day. You’re way too tired for lugging boxes back and forth to the garage.”
“Maggie, we’re not lugging anything to the garage. We’re lugging it all to the trash.”
“But I need to sort through everything first. Which is exactly why we shouldn’t rush things. Like I said before, what if we
accidentally threw away something precious like Dad’s medals or Mom’s wedding ring. I’d never forgive myself.”
She had a point.
Not only that, but to really clean this place out properly we were going to need a dumpster to ditch all the trash into, which
was something I needed to organize in the morning. That and the fact that I had promised to catch up with Bud and had been
ignoring his texts since I arrived made me want to agree with Maggie— things could wait till tomorrow.
 “Okay,” I conceded. “I need to check in with Bud, anyways.”
“Ooh, he’s so excited to see you.”
“I know, but before you change the subject, can you promise me that first thing in the morning we start cleaning this place
up?”
“Yeah… no. I’d love to but I have a shift tomorrow.”
“Can’t you take the day off?”
“Na-uh. Mike needs me. Management material, remember?”
“Okay, then tomorrow, after you finish work. No excuses. We can at least start sorting what to keep and what to chuck, then
on the weekend we can fill up a dumpster and store the rest of the stuff in the garage and run a goddamn vacuum over this
place. Agreed?”
Maggie grinned playfully. “On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You have some of my puppy chow. You just gotta have some puppy chow.”

I rubbed my aching belly. “I think I need to walk off some of my sister’s food.”
“Don’t tell me,” said Bud over the phone. “She fed you some of her puppy chow.”
“Will I die? It’s sweeter than I remember.”
“I think the chocolate-to-cereal ratio has increased dramatically over the years. What you need is a cold beer to wash it all
down.”
“Oh my God, are you serious?”
“It’ll be like a beer float for your belly. Trust me, you need a chaser, and getting out will do you good.”
“Bud, I really don’t want to go to Flannigan’s Bar. I don’t wanna see any old familiar faces right now. I just wanna lay low
for a while.”
“Well you won’t be seeing any old familiar faces at Flannigan’s because it closed down three years ago. There’s a new
place in town now, opened up about a year ago. You remember Mr. Kincade’s old barn on the other side of the river from the
mill? Well it’s now a bar.”
“That place was falling down. It was one big old bird’s nest. Who was crazy enough to buy that?”
“Someone you’ve never met before… and someone you won’t easily forget.”
“I don’t know, Bud. I’m not in the mood to see anyone, even if I’ve never met them before. I feel like everywhere I go,
people remember me from… you know what.”
“Mitch, the owner of this place won’t know you from a bar of soap. She hates sports, she thinks it’s for crooks and
cavemen.”
“Even figure skating?”
“I’m pretty sure if it makes you sweat, she hates it. Except doing the Cha-Cha. Apparently she makes an exception for that.
Come on, you’ll love her. Besides, how often do you get to try something new in Mulligan’s Mill?”
“I’m not doing the Cha-Cha.”
“Nobody’s asking you to. All I’m saying is come out and experience someplace new. It’ll be like a fresh start for you. A
whole re-invention of your life in Mulligan’s Mill. Meet me behind the ice cream parlor and we’ll take the Old Road down to
the barn. What do you say?”
Saying ‘no’ to Bud was one of those things in life that was almost impossible to do, like feeling miserable on the first sunny
day of spring, or side-stepping a mountain of golden autumn leaves on a forest trail instead of plowing straight through the
middle, kicking colors high into the air.
“Okay, okay.”
“So you’ll come?”
“Yes, I’ll come. But just as an excuse to walk off the puppy chow. I’m not coming out to make new friends.”
“Now, now. A new friend is simply a stranger you haven’t met yet.”
“So you’re writing greeting cards now? I didn’t know you were up for a new career.”
“Oh, you have no idea what my future holds… but that’s a whole different conversation. No time for that right now. We got
some drinking to do.”
“Walking.”
“Walking then drinking. Are you in your car yet?”
“No, but I’ll be reaching for my jacket… just as soon as I manage to roll off my bed.”
 “Woohoo! That’s the spirit!” Yes, Bud was one of those people who actually yelled ‘Woohoo’ when he was genuinely
excited. “Now get your panties on, princess. I’ve missed you!”
I couldn’t help but smile. “I’ve missed you too.”

Thankfully Maggie still kept the car keys on a magnetic hook on the fridge door, so I didn’t have to go rummaging. “Maggie-
Pie,” I called out, my voice almost swallowed up by the mountains of mess everywhere. “I’m heading out to see Bud.”
When she didn’t answer I ventured into the living room. Between two towers of clutter, Maggie sat on Dad’s old recliner,
feet up, eyes closed, a bowl of puppy chow on her stomach and a freight train snore rumbling from her throat. A short distance
in front of her, half-obscured by a pile of newspapers, an old episode of Murder She Wrote played on the TV.
Careful not to wake her, I switched off the TV, picked up the bowl and whispered to my sleeping sister, “I guess I’ll see you
in the morning.”
I washed the bowl in the kitchen sink, dried it, and put it away before it could be added to the list of things that needed to
be tidied away or thrown out altogether.
I headed outside and started up the old Chevy, banging on the dash to get the heater working.
I drove through the sleepy streets of town, passed Mike’s Mechanics and Raven’s General Store which were both closed
for the night. I drove toward Main Street Bridge and saw that the river had completely frozen over, its still-icy surface pale and
mesmerizing under the moon. I’d only ever seen it frozen like that a handful of times in my life. It must have been one helluva
cold winter.
There was no traffic in sight, so I slowed to a stop on the bridge and looked across to the Riverside Promenade like I was
gazing down memory lane. I saw that old Mr. Flannery’s bakery and Mrs. Hartigan’s garden shop had both closed down, their
doors boarded up. I wondered if they’d retired or left town. Thankfully, a short distance away, the old ice cream parlor was
still in business.
There was a time when I thought I’d never leave Mulligan’s Mill.
When I did, I’d thought I’d never come back.
Everything felt so familiar, and yet I couldn’t help but feel like a stranger now. There, under the glow of the streetlamps on
the Main Street Bridge, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of melancholy and even regret… that maybe I’d walked away from the
one place I ever truly belonged.
My wandering mind was pulled back to the present by the flash of a pair of headlights as a car pulled in behind the ice
cream parlor. Why did it not surprise me that Bud was still driving the old red Mustang he’d bought when he was eighteen?
He’d saved up for it all the way through high school. It was his pride and joy… even if he spent more time tinkering under the
hood than he did driving the damn thing. Lucky for him he was a mechanic, otherwise that car would have cost him ten times
what he paid for it by now.
I drove off the bridge and turned in after the Mustang, veering toward the start of a path known as the Old Road just as Bud
was getting out of his car.
In the headlights of the Chevy his beaming grin was almost blinding. He pounded the hood of my dad’s car with his gloved
hand as I pulled up beside him. “Hey, hey, hey! I know this car!”
I pulled on the brake and cut the engine, then climbed out quickly for the hug I’d been missing for so long.
Bud embraced me like Maggie did, like they’d both been taught to hug by a grizzly. It was heart-warming, if not chest-
crushing. “Oh man, I’ve missed you so much!”
“I’ve missed you too, Bud. You look good.”
He let go of me and took one glance at me. “I wish I could say the same for you. What the hell are they feeding you in New
—”
“Don’t. You sound like my sister. I’m eating just fine… I just can’t afford any fancy steak dinners, that’s all. The big city’s
an expensive place to live. But hey, I’m here now, right?”
Bud scruffed my hair and we started walking along the Old Road. “You sure are. Back in the Mill where you belong.” I
could see his thoughts switch tracks quickly. “Wait… you are here to stay now, right?”
“No. I’m only here to get Maggie and the house back on track, then I’m heading back to New York. I told you that already.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Well then, I meant to tell you.”
“Boo! I thought you were gonna stick around this time. I thought we were getting the old Mitch back.”
I sighed as our boots crunched on the ice alongside the frozen river. “If I’m honest, Bud, I’m not sure who or where the old
Mitch is anymore.”
 Bud made a face. “Woah. That’s deep, dude. You really do need a drink.”
We left the lights of the town center behind us, the scent of the pines clean and crisp. We passed Percy’s Pond, its solid
surface a misty blue mirror of the moonlit night. The memory of Lassiter’s Lake called to me. Tingles of excitement rippled
through my body at the thought of the lake all frozen over and begging to have its ice streaked and scratched by the blades of my
dad’s skates.
But as suddenly as the butterflies in my stomach appeared, they vanished at the memory of Gage skating on the same lake,
hockey stick in full swing, puck shooting across the ice.
The glances back and forth in those early days…
The look in his eye, even from a distance, that went from friendly to curious to suggestive as we grew to maturity…
My father never knowing what was going through my head as he called his instructions to me, angry at times that I wasn’t
concentrating.
“Mitch? Hey, Wings, you still with me, big guy?” Bud pulled off one glove and snapped his fingers in front of my face.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
“I said, can you hear the music? That’s Aunt Bea for you.”
As I pulled myself back to the present, I heard the distinct strains of an old Motown track drifting through the trees. “Is
that…?”
“Midnight Train to Georgia? I do believe it is.”
“I love that song.”
“You should. It’s about finding your way home again… doing it for someone you love.”
I eyed him suspiciously. “Did you plan this?”
He laughed. “Mastermind that I am, unfortunately no. Bea’s jukebox is mostly full of music like this. It’s good for the soul.
Her words, not mine, although I don’t disagree at all. Come on, we’re almost there.”
He pointed through the pines to a warm, inviting light in the clearing where Mr. Kincade’s derelict old barn stood. Only as
we passed the trees and the building came into view, I saw there was nothing derelict about it.
The old death-trap had been completely brought back to life with a lick of bright red paint. Supporting beams had been
propped up, broken windows had been fixed, holes in the roof had been patched up and there wasn’t a single nesting bird in
sight. The doors that were falling off their hinges had been replaced with large sliding barn doors, with an awning to shelter
patrons from snow and rain, and fairy lights twinkling overhead like snowflakes frozen in time. On each side of the outdoor
area a fire crackled in a newly built firepit, warm and welcoming.
Normally from where we were standing, all you’d hear was the wind howling through the old abandoned mill across the
river and the groan of its rotting timber wheel straining to turn with the flow of the water. But the music from the Barnyard Bar
drowned that out now, filling the night forest with life and joy.
Bud slapped my shoulder with the back of his hand and gestured to the barn as though he’d built it himself. “You like?”
I nodded. “I like.”
“Come on. You’re gonna love Aunt Bea. Like I said, she’s a one-of-a-kind.”
Bud wrapped his arm around me and together we walked through the open barn doors to find a bar that was far from empty,
but it wasn’t packed to the rafters either. It was filled with just the right amount of patrons, all of them laughing and drinking
and eating beer nuts by the handful. Before I could spot anyone I knew, I looked at the floor, avoiding any eye contact in the
hopes of entering the premises as discreetly as possible.
Hopes that were very short-lived.
“Well hallelujah! She’s finally found herself a man! And here I was thinking our Bud would never blossom!”
Beside me Bud burst out laughing, although unable to stop himself from blushing at the same time.
Meanwhile, all I wanted to do was turn and run.
I glanced up, looking for an escape, and caught sight of a seven-foot-something African American drag queen marching
toward us from behind the bar. Her green sequined frock shimmered with Tina Turner glitz, her hair was bigger than a
Supremes’ spectacle, and I was pretty sure when nature called, it was all rainbows and glitter. She was fabulous and terrifying
all at once.
“Oh God, I really have to leave.”
But as I turned, Bud grabbed my arm and held on tight. “Mitch… chill! It’s just Aunt Bea.”
“That’s Aunt Bea? I was expecting Betty White.”
Evidently, Aunt Bea’s hearing was as sharp as her fashion sense. “Oh sugar, there ain’t nothin’ white about this Betty. And
the name’s Bea, sweetheart. Bea as in ‘B’ for Patti LaBelle… ‘B’ for Billie Holiday… ‘B’ for Dame Shirley Bassey… all
rolled into one booty-licious bombshell of a diva whose name you will never have to ask twice again. And who, my handsome
little ray of sunshine, might you be?”
“Bea, this is my best friend I was telling you about… Mitch.”
“Oh, of course. Bud here has been like a puppy needing to pee ever since he heard you were coming home.” Bea held out
her hand like royalty. “Charmed, I’m sure.”
Nervously I took Bea’s fingers and gave them a jiggle.
“Oh honey, you can shake my hand a little firmer than that. I feel like my fingers just got molested by a jellyfish.”
Awkwardly I shook her hand again. “Pleased to meet you. Although I should let you know I’m not Bud’s boyfriend.”
She looked at me quizzically.
“When we walked in, you referred to Bud finding a man,” I said, feeling the need to explain.
Bea laughed. “Oh you precious little thing. I was teasing. Look at Bud, he’s as straight-acting as they come.” She pondered
a moment, then added with one raised eyebrow, “Then again, anything’s possible. Like my Grammy always said— spaghetti’s
straight till it gets into a little hot water.”
She eyed Bud with one eyebrow raised and Bud blushed even more this time. Quickly he changed the subject. “Geez I’m
thirsty. Who needs a beer?”
At that moment, the song on the jukebox ended and we were no longer on a midnight train to Georgia. Instead, the deafening
thrash of a rock song filled the bar as AC/DC’s Highway to Hell began blaring.
Bea’s eyes widened like those of an angry bull. With as much calmness as she could fake, she smiled and said, “Gentlemen,
would you excuse me for a moment?”
With that she stormed over to the jukebox, hitched up her skirt, and promptly kicked the side of the jukebox so hard that the
record scratched to a halt and the entire front of the machine popped open, revealing the stacks of records and the turntable
inside. Reaching in with one fist as though she was unceremoniously gutting a fish, Bea ripped the offending record out of the
box and held it high. “Who the fuck chose this ungodly assault on my senses?”
Suddenly the entire bar fell quiet, until there came a defiant laugh from a table near the wall. A guy I recognized from
school rose his hand. His name came to me straight away— Bo Harlow. He was a bully so confident and cocky that it didn’t
matter how cute he was. Funny how being an asshole made even the best-looking people ugly.
He stood from his chair and shrugged at Bea indifferently. “You always play the same shit in here. I thought I’d break up the
mood.”
Bea glared with dagger eyes. “Oh honey, I’ve got something that needs breaking all right.”
With a powerful swing of her arm she suddenly hurled the record at Bo. It whistled through the air like a ninja death star,
something that might have sliced Bo’s head clean off had he not ducked at the last second. With a loud smash, the record
shattered on the wall behind him.
“Jesus, Bea! You nearly fucking killed me!”
“Consider yourself lucky I didn’t break a heel kicking the damn machine open. Things might have been much worse.”
Turning her back on him with a pirouette that made her sequined frock light up the room like a disco ball, Bea snapped the
machine shut and punched in a code she knew all too well. In the next moment, River Deep, Mountain High by The Supremes
and the Four Tops began to play. Instantly the banter and relaxed atmosphere returned to the bar.
With a swish of her head and a flick of her hair, Bea returned to me and Bud, took us both by the arm and led us to the bar.
“Sorry about that, gentlemen. Now tell me, what would you like to drink? The first round is on me. Let’s celebrate the return of
Mitch, the prodigal son.”
“That’s very kind of you,” I said. “But you don’t have to—”
“We’ll take a beer each,” interjected Bud.
Bea grinned. “Nothing but the finest for our Bud and his best friend. Two beers coming right up.”
As Bea began pouring two glasses from the beers on tap, I noticed she was working the bar alone. “You run this place all
by yourself?” I asked. “You must get busy.”
“Oh, we do. My guy who helps out with the nightshift will be here soon. He’s just a little late tonight, that’s all. I need to
cut the guy a break every now and then. He’s got a kid to look after and no ring on his finger, poor unfortunate soul.”
“Single dad?”
“Single uncle. He’s constantly run off his feet trying to stay on top of things. Lucky for him he’s fit as a fiddle. An ass so
tight you could crack a walnut between those cheeks. I guess that’s what comes from being the captain of the hockey team
through your formative years.”
Instantly I felt the blood drain from my face. “What did you say?”
“You wanna hear about the walnut again? I don’t blame you, that fantasy plays over and over in my head every time he’s on
shift.”
“No. The hockey team. You said he was captain of the—” I didn’t even bother finishing my sentence before I set down my
beer and looked at Bud. “I have to go.”
I turned from the bar only to come face-to-face with Bo Harlow, grinning like the arrogant son-of-a-bitch he was. “Leaving
so soon? You just got here, Wings. Or should I call you… Broken Wings?”
“Lay off him, Bo,” Bud interjected, standing by my side.
Bo shrugged. “What’s the problem? I was just saying hi to my old school pal. Or maybe he needs someone to stand up for
him… since he’s so good at falling down.”
He said it loud enough to get a laugh out of his buddies at their table a short distance away.
Bud quickly made a move for Bo, bunching up his fist, but before he could take more than a step, Aunt Bea appeared
between us and Bo.
She held Bud back with one hand, and pointed at Bo with the other, jabbing him in the chest with a gleaming pink
fingernail. “Bo, sweetie, what have I told you before? If nothing nice can come out of that cakehole of yours, I’m gonna put
something in it so big, you’ll finally realize why the Lord gave us nostrils to breathe through.”
The laughter from Bo’s buddies grew even louder, only now Bo was the butt of the joke.
Annoyed and humiliated, he turned for his table, grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair and stormed toward the door.
“I don’t know why I bother coming to this fucking dive,” he grumbled loudly on his way out.
“That makes you and me both, honey-bunch,” called Aunt Bea after him as he strutted off into the night. With a sigh she
watched him leave. “Look at him, would you? Pretty as a peach and hotter than Hades. And yet some people are like sex on the
sand… it’s all well and good in a fairy-tale romance set under the Arabian sky, but in reality who the fuck wants all that crap
up their ass? Oooh, speaking of handsome men…”
She smiled as someone else appeared in the door, brushing past Bo and racing into the bar.
My heart didn’t know whether to speed up or stop altogether. “Oh crap,” I whispered to myself. For there he was, the man
I’d loved and hated and missed and cursed and dreamed of every day since I’d left town. “Gage,” I breathed.
Before he even noticed me, Gage hurried by Aunt Bea, muttering “I’m so sorry I’m late. I’ll put in the extra at closing
time.” He rushed behind the bar, put an apron over his head, tied it around the back then looked up… and froze, wide-eyed.
“Mitch,” he breathed.
He was even more handsome than he was when we were kids. He had grown into his masculine skin with ease. His jaw
seemed stronger, his hair was shorter and his eyes, although weary, seemed impossibly bluer than they’d ever been.
Far from stopping altogether, my heart instead decided to hammer as hard as it could against the wall of my chest.
My stomach tightened in knotted balls of anguish.
I wanted to kiss him.
I wanted to hold him.
I wanted to hit him.
I wanted to push him to the ground just as he had done to me in front of his parents’ house all those years ago.
But instead I simply stood there, as frozen as he was, locked in a gaze that defied all sense of space and time until Aunt Bea
said, “Ah… hello? Gage? Mitch? What exactly is happening here?”
I snapped out of my trance with a firm and final, “I have to go. Thank you for the beer.”
I didn’t even wait for a response from Bud.
I simply turned and channeled every last ounce of dignity inside me to stop myself from sprinting out the door. Of course,
there was no denying the briskness of my step, my stride so swift that as soon as I was out in the snow I almost lived up to my
reputation and slipped once more.
Thankfully I caught myself from falling just in time… assisted also by Bud who suddenly appeared by my side, holding me
steady by one arm.
“Mitch? What the fuck? What just happened back there?”
“Nothing.” I steadied myself and kept walking out into the snow. He kept pace.
“What do you mean, nothing? That was clearly not nothing. You and Gage saw each other and all of a sudden neither of you
could move. I thought you got along okay with him at school. I mean, you never really had much in common, what with him
being such a jock and all. But I didn’t think he ever gave you a hard time. Has he been an asshole to you since… you know…
the fall. Because if he has, I’d be more than happy to fuck up his car next time he stops in at the garage. Nobody messes with
my best—”
“Bud, I said it was nothing.”
“You didn’t act like it was nothing.”
I stopped walking as paranoia set in. “How did I act?”
Bud only shrugged. “I dunno. Like someone who just saw a ghost.”
It seemed an appropriate analogy. Gage was nothing if not the ghost of my past… the ghost of my heart. “I didn’t recognize
who it was,” I lied. “I don’t really remember him that well. I guess I was just standing there trying to figure out who it was.”
“Mitch, the second you saw him you said his name. Gage. That’s Gage Channing, the captain of the hockey team at school.”
“Well, I know that now. I remember who he is now.” I started walking again. “Can we just go home? It’s freezing out here.”
“It wasn’t freezing back at the bar. Just sayin’.”
“You didn’t have to follow me out. You can go back if you like.”
“And let you walk through the snow on your own? I don’t think so. What if you have another zombie moment like back
there?”
 “It wasn’t a zombie moment. It was just… forget it. I’m tired. I just need some shut-eye. Is that okay?”
Bud wrapped an arm around me. “Of course it is, buddy. We can visit Bea’s Barnyard some other time. We’ve got plenty of
time… now that you’re home?”
Little did Bud know, at that moment I was seriously contemplating packing my bag and skipping town first thing in the
morning. Once again.
For now, I was too tired to admit how I felt. “Let’s just get outta here before we freeze.”
“You betcha.” We started walking again. “Although I wouldn’t mind taking a peek through the window of Mrs. Hartigan’s
old garden shop before we get to the cars.”
“What for? It’s closed down, hasn’t it?”
Bud shrugged again. “Nothing. Just curious.”

That night, any attempt to sleep in my old bedroom was pointless.

Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was Gage’s face.
Once there was a time he’d smile at me.
Once there was a time I’d lose myself in those eyes.
Once there was a time I’d do anything to look into that handsome, loving gaze.
But that night, all I got was a look of utter shock the second he saw me. It was a shock so overwhelming that if there was
any remorse or love or longing beneath it, there was no hope of it breaking through. Clearly the look on my own face had been
the exact same look on his.
I had to shut him out of my head.
I looked around at the shadows in my messy room. In the darkness it was impossible to tell what was stacked in the piles
and mounds that Maggie had built in her kingdom of clutter. I tried to remember what the rooms of the house looked like before
she had started filling them with junk, but already the memory of them was slipping away. I could only recall them in glimpses
that appeared in my head like a slideshow of random images:
The mudroom off the laundry where Dad and I would pull off our skates and hang them to dry;
The corner of the living room where the Christmas tree went;
The kitchen drawer where Mom kept the key to her china cabinet.
Now those spaces were crammed with piles of papers and boxes of trinkets and rattling jars. There was no longer any hope
of pushing your way through the mudroom or getting that kitchen drawer open or finding a suitable corner anywhere in the
house to put up a Christmas tree. And with it, any hope of holding onto the memory of our parents seemed to be slipping away
too, especially my memories of our mom who died when I was only eight. She was the one who had always filled our home
with joy. In the evenings she would put on her favorite records and try to teach me and Maggie how to dance. Maggie wasn’t so
great at it, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that Mom’s dance lessons helped me find my timing and rhythm on the ice.
She was kind.
She was loving.
Then one day she was gone.
An aneurysm, something nobody saw coming.
I don’t really remember the funeral.
I just remember her laughing and dancing in the living room to Starship’s Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now. That was her
favorite song.
Maybe I didn’t need any memories other than that one. That was how I always wanted to remember her.
Years later our dad died. After Mom passed he threw himself into my skating lessons. He was almost more obsessed with
it than I was. He trained me through the coldest of winters out on Lassiter’s Lake. He taught me discipline and strength, he
taught me how to focus and concentrate on nothing but the ice. I lived by his lessons…
Until the day of the fall.
Until the moment I launched into that now notorious axel and I let it happen.
I let the thought of Gage slip into my head and I lost focus.
In the weeks after the fall, Dad seemed to lose himself in his sadness. I couldn’t remember him ever really grieving after
Mom died, but he grieved after the fall. Perhaps everything just caught up with him. He was out in the garage one day fixing the
toe pick on one of my skates when he died.
Doc Morgan said it was a cardiac arrest…
But I always knew Dad died of a broken heart.
 And I knew it was my fault.
I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t, but the guilt was too great to bear.
After the funeral— after I picked up a handful of dirt and listened to it thud on top of his coffin with a finality that felt like a
hammer blow— I left Mulligan’s Mill. I packed my bag and hugged my tearful sister goodbye and caught an old Greyhound bus
all the way to New York.
Now I was back…
In a room I could barely recognize…
In a house I could hardly remember.
With a long deep sigh I realized I couldn’t run away this time.
I had to stay to help my sister.
I had to do whatever I could to bring the happy memories back to our home.
I had to help her find the courage to change her life…
Even if I struggled to find any courage of my own at the thought of ever bumping into Gage again.
 G AG E

WITH ONE LAST slap of the mop across the floorboards, I finished cleaning up and schlepped the mop and bucket out back.
When I returned, I was half expecting Aunt Bea to divvy out my tips and tell me to scram so she could lock the doors and head
up to her lavishly decorated barn loft which she fondly referred to as Bea’s Boudoir.
But as I untied my apron and hung it behind the bar, I heard the lock click on the barn doors before I’d even left.
I looked up to see Bea swinging the keys around one finger. “If you think you’re getting out of here without telling me
what’s going on between you and that pretty skater boy, you’re very much sadly mistaken.”
I faked a laugh. “What are you talking about? What pretty skater boy?”
“The one you’re clearly in love with.”
I laughed even louder— perhaps too loud— overcompensating for my nerves. “Bea, you’re waaaaaay overthinking things. I
barely know that guy. What’s his name again? Mack… Mike… Midge…”
“Oh dear God in fucking heaven, watching you try to lie is like watching my mother try to send a text message. It’s
excruciating. You know all too well his name is Mitch. Now fess up before I torture the truth out of you. Your nipples are no
match for my nails.”
“Bea, I swear, nothing’s going on. Sure, I went to school with him, but that feels like a lifetime ago now. I can hardly
remember the guy. I don’t know anything about him. And I’ve certainly never been in love with him. Hell, I’m not even gay, you
know that.”
“Oh darling, if I had a dollar for every straight man I’d fucked, my boudoir would be a penthouse in Paris, not a barn in
Smallville, Wisconsin.” With a determined stride she made her way over to me, cornering me behind the bar. “I know you’re
keeping something from me. I know something is going on between the two of you. Now spill the beans before I kick the whole
tin over.”
“I can’t. I have to get home to Ginny. Mrs. Kozlowski will be wondering where I am.”
“Nurse Ratched can wait. Now talk.”
“There’s nothing to tell you.”
“Oh yes there is. I can practically see your little secret spinning around inside your brain like a clothesline in the wind.
Time to whip out the dirty laundry, Gage.”
“But there’s nothing to whip out!”
“Oh, I think you and Mitch have whipped out plenty in the past.”
“Okay, okay. If you must know… we had a falling out in our last year of high school.”
“What kind of falling out?” Bea pressed.
“I don’t remember. We had a fight, that’s all.”
“What were you fighting over?”
“I don’t know. Probably a girl. Actually yes… that was it. There was a girl at school I liked. He made a move on her.
Before you know it… biffo.”
“Biffo? Oh please. This is worse than watching my mother try to send a text. It’s like letting Bo pick the next song on the
jukebox. It’s positively insufferable.”
“I swear, it was all over a girl.”
“And what, pray tell, was this fair maiden’s name?”
My mind went blank. Under the pressure of Bea’s glittery interrogation, I couldn’t think of a single name. And so, taking in
a deep breath, I tried to lie. “It was Suzy… or Samantha… no it was Stacey… but without the ‘e’… like Macy… but without
the ‘M’… not that you’d know this girl anyway because she moved out of town years ago… all the way to Detroit… Oh God,
you’re from Detroit… I mean, Des Moines… she moved to Des Moines… with her three cats… and nobody in town stays in
touch with her anymore, so there’s absolutely no way of verifying we even dated or if Mitch ever asked her out or if there was
ever a biffo in the first place.” I inhaled as much oxygen as I could, my head spinning. “So you’re just going to have to take my
word for it.”
Bea placed her hands on her hips and eyed me with suspicion.
I bit my bottom lip and uttered. “You’re not going to take my word for it, are you.”
Bea gave a slow, serious shake of her head.
“Oh God, I really am a trainwreck of a liar!”
With a hand on my shoulder, Bea said, “That’s a good thing. People who are bad at lying tend to be good at telling the truth.
So why don’t you tell me yours.”
Bea grabbed a bar stool and shoved it under my ass. My elbows hit the bar and my head landed in my hands. “Oh Bea… I
don’t know if I can. I’ve never told anybody this before.”
“Oh my precious honeypot. You’ve got a little birdie inside that needs to fly. I promise you, once you open the door to that
birdcage in your soul, you’ll never look back.” She could see I was still reluctant to say anything and added, “Here, let me play
you something for a little comfort and inspiration.”
Bea stepped over to the jukebox, dropped a coin in the slot and pressed a button. In the next moment, Randy Crawford’s
Someday I’ll Fly Away began to play.
“This is a song about making a move… or moving on. It’s your choice.” She returned to the bar and poured two glasses of
her top shelf whiskey, one for her and one for me. “But no matter what you decide, telling your secret is going to make you feel
like a new man… or perhaps you’ll even want that handsome old one back again.”
I looked at her with a sigh. “Is it that obvious?”
“What? That you’re not as straight as people might think? Sweetie, it wasn’t obvious at all. That is, until things took a
sudden turn the minute you and Mitch saw one another. You know, the kind of sudden turn that causes pile-ups on the freeway.”
“Oh geez.”
“Don’t fret, fortunately nobody was hurt.”
“Then why do I still get a pain in my chest every time I think about him?”
Bea’s expression melted into one of compassion. “Oh Gage, you really do have a secret burning you up inside. Tell Aunt
Bea everything.”
“I don’t even know where to start?”
“Well, as Sister Maria once said to the Von Trapp children—”
I quickly held my hand up to stop her. “Thanks, but I don’t think I’m quite that gay yet.”
“Ah… so you have indeed ventured behind the candelabra.”
“I have no idea with that even means, but I get the gist.” I took a sip of my whiskey. “Yes, me and Mitch knew each other in
high school. We knew each other better than anyone ever suspected. It started out at the lake. I was always training for hockey.
He was training for figure skating, he went to the Olympics, you know. I always had this dream that he’d win gold, and I’d be
there to hug him and kiss him and hold him tight. Then later, in our room, I’d play him Bette Midler’s The Wind Beneath My
Wings, because that’s what I always wanted to be. Sounds stupid, I know.”
“Sounds romantic if you ask me.”
“I was just so proud of him for going, you know. Even despite the fall. At least he got to the Olympics, he made that dream
a reality. And damn he tried his best.”
“Have you ever told him that?”
I shook my head. “Not to his face. We stopped talking a year or so before he went to the Olympics. It was all my fault. We
had a fight. My father caught us… touching… outside my house one night. I freaked out. I pushed him away. I blamed him for
trying to touch me. I told him to leave me alone… just so my father wouldn’t think I was…” I struggled to say, “… in love with
another boy.”
Bea rubbed my hand. “You know, there’s no need to qualify that it was another boy. You were in love. Period. It doesn’t
matter who you were in love with.”
“It did to my father. It mattered a lot. He thought it would blow my chances of a hockey scholarship. He’s strict like that.
And now he’s got a new wife, Krystal, who has Jesus on speed-dial. I could never tell them about Mitch.”
“You don’t think your father already knows? You don’t think he saw something that night?”
“Probably. But if he did, he’s buried it. He wouldn’t ever want that kind of thing to see the light of day. It would ruin him.”
“And so you let this secret ruin you instead?”
I took another drink and laughed. “Hell, I’ve already been ruined every which way to next Tuesday. My sister died. Then
my mom died. Then my dad and his wife made things so unbearable for poor Ginny that I stepped in as her full-time carer. You
know the rest.”
“And all the while, your love for Mitch just kept simmering beneath the surface.” Bea took a drink this time then said, “You
said you never told Mitch you were proud of him to his face. What do you mean by that?”
I took a deep breath and admitted, “I did tell him… in letters. I couldn’t face him, I didn’t have the guts to talk to him, so I
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not sufficiently ready some time ago) are already members of the
Visible Church.
Many of the men have been won to Christianity by a tragic
happening of last year. Dr. Logan, of the Presbyterian Mission, was
shot by a lunatic whom he had been asked to examine medically in
the General’s room. The General flung himself on the man to disarm
him and was himself shot in two places. A colonel who rushed into
the room on hearing the shots, saw both Dr. Logan and the General
on the floor, and asked the latter, “Shall I take the man out and shoot
him?” but the answer was “No.” The man, not being responsible for
his actions, was only to be put in a place of safety where he could
harm no one. Dr. Logan died in about an hour, but the General was
taken to hospital and recovered. A day or two later Mrs. Logan was
told by one of the officers that the lunatic was in fetters and that he
had struck him in the face, and was surprised at her indignation on
hearing it. She at once went to headquarters where the lunatic was
confined and ordered the astonished officer in charge to take off all
the man’s fetters. He naturally demurred, but on hearing who she
was, he exclaimed: “This man murdered your husband, and do you
mean to say that you want us to treat him kindly?” The result of her
deed was that a large number of the soldiers decided to become
Christians: they had expected severe reprisals to be demanded and
said that no religion could compare with a religion producing such
deeds as Mrs. Logan’s. The impression made was profound and
widespread.
All we saw and heard of General Feng made us anxious to see so
remarkable a man, and the missionaries very kindly arranged an
interview which took place about 8.30 a.m. The General and Mrs.
Feng received us in their simple home at headquarters, and we had
a long talk about China and other matters, for he is an ardent patriot
and shares the universal anxiety about the disturbed state of China
and the Japanese invasion. On a later occasion he asked what our
dresses were made of, and on hearing that it was Chinese silk, he
was pleased and said they were very nice. Our hats he did not like,
and said we ought to wear straw ones like his wife. She put hers on
to show us at his request, and of course we made such polite
remarks as the occasion demanded, so he sent out an orderly at
once to buy two, and we had to put them on, while our own hats
were put in a paper parcel for us to take home! The hat was certainly
much more suitable to the time of year than the one I was wearing,
and he asked if I should take it back to England: he had been trying
to persuade the other taitais (ladies) to wear them, but without much
success. Most of the Chinese are extremely keen to have European
things, and European headgear as seen in the bazaars is too
appalling for words. Often a charming Chinese costume is
completely spoiled by some garish woolwork cap, with artificial
flowers of varied hues.
The General believes in five things:

(i) Religion;
(ii) Work;
(iii) Education;
(iv) Discipline;
(v) Cleanliness.

These things are not a matter of theory, but of practice. He has

taken heed to the words, “Ye that love the Lord HATE EVIL,” and
while he puts down all that appears wrong, he is equally energetic in
promoting good things. For instance, he requires every officer as
well as every private to learn a trade or profession, so that when he
leaves the army he will not remain unemployed. We went all over the
army workshops where many trades are represented, and found
them extremely clean, well-ventilated and attractive. There is a ready
sale for all their products and they make all the army clothing,
towels, socks, boots, etc. Each soldier is required to do one year’s
training in the workshops for seven hours a day. There is also
educational work in full swing and special three-months’ courses of
instruction. To these one private and one lieutenant are elected for
each company at a time, and although no promotion follows special
success in the examinations, they are taken cognizance of when
there is a question of promotion. Much attention is paid to athletics
and physical drill, and efficiency is the hall-mark of every
department. They looked to my unprofessional eye the smartest,
best-turned-out soldiers in China, and the record of certain route
marches I dare not set down because they make too great a demand
on our belief, whose physical endurance is infinitely less. Woe betide
the man on whom the General’s eagle eye detects lack of polish or
scrupulous care in his accoutrements! To anyone who knows China,
I must seem rather untruthful in stating that bad smells do not exist in
the camp, and every bed is clean and provided with a mosquito net.
It must be added that the army is not all concentrated at
Changteh, but there are various camps scattered over the area
governed by General Feng, the population inhabiting which is
estimated at seven to eight million people. He is aided in the city by
an efficient young magistrate who is in sympathy with his aims, and
who was appointed by him. He certainly knows how to select men,
and is training a valuable body of officers to occupy—one cannot but
hope—a much wider sphere of service for the country later on. The
achievement of the last two years makes anything seem possible to
one who has seen it, and one of the Britishers who has been in close
touch with him while he has been in Changteh remarked on the
striking development of the General’s personality during that time.
He is a practical democrat, shares teaching and work with his men,
and has actually succeeded in getting his officers to take part in the
meanest work, such as water-carrying, to show that there is nothing
contemptible in honest labour. The General attends the English class
on Thursday evenings with the other officers and shows no official
arrogance of any kind. At the Sunday services he retires to a
backless bench at the far end of the hall like any “Tommy.”
This brings me to one of the strangest experiences of my life. The
evening after our interview with the General he sent one of his
officers to ask me to give the address at the military service on
Sunday morning. As he knew I was no missionary and no one could
have told him that I had ever preached or was accustomed to
speaking in public, the only explanation of the invitation seems to be
his intense desire to seize any possible chance of stirring his people
to fresh endeavour. His interpreter would act as mine unless I
preferred having my own. Having received my answer in the
affirmative, next day the officer came again to know what portion of
Scripture I wanted read in order that it might be well read. The
service took place at 7 a.m. on a lovely summer morning, and was
held in a big barrack-like hall with a platform at one end with pots of
flowers on it; a gallery ran round the hall, in which was the military
band, and beyond that some of the officers’ wives and children,
including the General’s family. The Chief of Staff conducted the
service, which was just like an ordinary Nonconformist service at
home, beginning with the National Anthem by the band. The prayers
were led by officers among the audience and were short and
impressive, the singing of the hymns was hearty, led by a choir, and
many of those present had Bibles as well as hymn-books so as to
follow the lesson. A boys’ school of officers’ sons sat at the front. It
was a wonderful inspiration to speak to such an audience as they
listened in rapt attention to the story of the “Contemptible Little
Army”, and other historical instances of God’s use of weak things to
confound the mighty; every now and then a little burst of irresistible
applause broke from them, and quite a number were taking notes all
the time. What would I not have given to speak in their own tongue!
for it is just paralysing to speak through an interpreter, and weak
words become weaker still. The text comforted my despair.
After service we went with the General to breakfast: it was a
cheerful meal, as he is full of humour and devoted to his family. The
characteristic Chinese love of children was very evident in the
involuntary caresses he bestowed upon the little girls while he was
talking, as they nestled against his arm. Rather an amusing instance
of his humour was told us by our charming Irish host, a tall, spare
man. He was crossing the drill ground one day with a short Chinese
officer to speak to the General, who was standing chatting with a
group of officers on the further side. As the General watched their
approach he made a remark which was greeted with laughter. Our
host’s curiosity being aroused, he inquired from one of them
afterwards what the joke was. “The General said, ‘Don’t you think the
missionary looks as if he ought to be the officer and the officer the
missionary?’” The breakfast was entirely Chinese with the exception
of knife, fork and spoon being provided for us, but we pleased our
host by our use of chopsticks instead. After breakfast we had a little
rest in Mrs. Feng’s room, and all the rooms we saw were
characterized by simplicity, extreme tidiness and cleanliness. We
noticed a bright little servant girl, and heard she had been rescued
from slavery some years ago by the General’s wife.
General Feng gave me the photograph of himself and family, and
at my request wrote the name of each of the children. His own name
is at the right hand of the photo.
What struck me most at the ladies’ meeting which followed was
the fact of the General coming to it and taking part, showing his real
interest in woman’s welfare; it is remarkable how keenly he is
working—not only for the army, but for women in general as well as
in particular, and for the whole population of his district. He and his
officers have pledged one another to work for the evangelization of
the civil population, each one making it a rule to try and win at least
one of the official class per annum. In this may be seen the instinct
for the continuation of a Christian policy if the Christian army should
be ordered elsewhere.
As we were taking leave of the General at the close of the
meeting, he said to me: “I think you will speak to my officers this
evening,” which meant the five o’clock service for officers. I felt
overwhelmed, as the two services had been very exhausting, but my
host suggested that I should give them an account of what we had
seen of the Chinese Home Missionary Society, and of the work
amongst the aborigines, and the General said that would interest
them very much. He said that the morning address had been not at
all like what he expected, but did not explain the statement. Of
course, it was impossible to decline, and I took for granted there
would be only a small gathering—perhaps two or three dozen men.
At five o’clock we were back at the hall and there must have been
from two to three hundred officers present and many ladies in the
gallery. Again the same quiet spirit of worship and eager expectancy
dominated, and the expression of those upturned faces will never
fade from my memory, as I told the story of the missionaries coming
to barbarian Britain, delivering their Message and leaving the living
Message to fulfil itself, the British Church in its turn becoming the
missionary to China, who, in its turn, is now called to take up the
task, and is beginning to do so. After the General had seen us out of
the hall he turned back, and did not rejoin us for some time, the
reason being (as I learned, after leaving Changteh, from my
interpreter, who was the friend of the General’s interpreter) that he
went back to urge the audience to pay heed to the thing which had
been said, and to say a few words about the speaker. In the whole
matter he acted with such striking self-forgetfulness and tact as I
have rarely, if ever, met.
It was not to be expected that such a happy state of affairs would
be allowed to continue more than a limited time; for the forces of evil
do not accept tamely such a defiance. As in the old days at Ephesus,
seeing the source of their wealth attacked, there were plenty of
people ready to counter-attack by fair means or foul. A few months
later General Feng got his orders to leave Changteh. No sooner had
he done so than the Southern troops swarmed back into the
undefended city. The houses of ill fame were at once reopened,
under military sanction, with soldiers posted at the doors. A time of
much unrest followed, and no one knows from day to day what will
happen. There is great disorder among the ill-paid troops, and
shooting among themselves took place in the streets. An officer was
shot close beside the mission premises where we stayed. The
schools have been closed and the opium dens and theatres
reopened. The Southern troops now hold all the important part of the
province, a serious loss to the Government at Peking. Business is at
a standstill.
Since Sun Yat Sen has been chosen President of the Southern
Government, there is a split among the Southern provinces. The
man who was looked on with such hopes by many as a sincere
patriot, has proved very much the reverse; he is now a fresh source
of discord, and bitter fighting is going on between the provinces of
Kwang-Tung and Kwang-si.
And what, meanwhile, of General Feng and his army? They were
ordered to go to Chu-ma-tien in Honan. This is on the railway line
from Peking to Hankow, and is some hundred and fifty miles north of
the latter. It was formerly a place of no importance, but since the
coming of the railway its trade has increased rapidly, and it is
becoming a big market for the agricultural produce of the
surrounding country. As there is a large depôt for railway material
and water tanks, it is no doubt important that the place should be
properly guarded. But Honan is under military governorship, and the
present Tuchun, General Chow Ti, is a bitter opponent of General
Feng, and is working hard to get rid of him. He has succeeded in
getting the Provincial Assembly to accuse Feng to the authorities at
Peking of illegally extorting money at a place called Hsuchow. There
are at present three military leaders at Peking, who so far have
refused to act in this matter, and they are trying to bring the two
generals to an agreement. They are afraid of fresh conflicts arising in
the province. The Honanese are not the easiest people to govern,
the province is densely populated. “They are of an independent turn
of mind,” says one who knows them well, “and will not brook reproof;
very conservative, they do not welcome foreign innovation.”
Meanwhile the troops are starving and urgent demands for arrears
of pay have no effect upon the War Lords at Peking.
What the outcome of the controversy will be, time will soon reveal.
 Chapter VIII
The New Chinese Woman—Miss Tseng, B.Sc.
(Lond.)

“There can be no question at all that the education of

women is, in every grade, quite as important as the education
of men, and that educational training is quite as important in
the case of women teachers as in the case of men. Indeed in
view of the fact that character is largely determined in the
early years and by the influence of the mother in the home,
the education of women acquires a place of first
importance.... All the women’s educational work in a district
should be planned in co-ordination with the corresponding
work for men and boys.”—World Missionary Conference
Report on Education, 1910.

Chapter VIII
The New Chinese Woman—Miss Tseng, B.Sc. (Lond.)

Unlike the women of other races of the East, the Chinese woman
has always shown a marked strength of character, and evidently, as
Mrs. Poyser so truly remarked, “God made ’em to match the men.”
That the men did not approve of this is equally plain, for, looking
back some thousands of years, we find the great Confucius teaching
the best way of counteracting this inborn self-will and strength of
character.
“It is a law of nature,” he says, “that woman should be kept under
the control of man and not allowed any will of her own. In the other
world the condition of affairs is exactly the same, for the same laws
 HAKKA BOAT AT CHAO CHOW.

govern there as here.”

“Women are as different from men as earth is from heaven....
Women are indeed human beings, but they are of a lower state than
men, and can never attain to a full equality with them. The aim of
female education therefore is perfect submission, not cultivation and
development of the mind.”
Not only Confucius spoke thus strongly about the education of
women, but all through the centuries Chinese writers of note refer to
the subject of woman’s duty and education, and her attitude towards
man. This is graphically set out in the important work, The Ritual of
Chau—What a revelation of Chinese home life it is!
“In conversation a woman should not be forward and garrulous,
but observe strictly what is correct, whether in suggesting advice to
her husband, in remonstrating with him, in teaching her children, in
maintaining etiquette, in humbly imparting her experience and in
averting misfortune. The deportment of females should be strictly
grave and sober, and yet adapted to the occasion; whether in waiting
on her parents, receiving or reverencing her husband, rising up or
sitting down, in times of mourning or fleeing in war, she should be
perfectly decorous. Rearing the silkworm and working cloth are the
most important of the employments of a female; preparing and
serving up the food for her husband and setting in order the
sacrifices follow next, each of which must be attended to. After them
study and learning can fill up the time.” This last detail shows clearly
that it was no unusual thing for the women to have a knowledge of
literature, and there is no mean list of women writers in the field of
belles-lettres, while one even wrote on the sacrosanct subject of
dynastic history in the fifth century. The first treatise on the education
of women was written by a Chinese woman some eighteen centuries
ago, and it is rather interesting to see what her ideal for womanhood
was, and to compare it with the present-day ideal. “The virtue of a
female does not consist altogether in extraordinary abilities or
intelligence, but in being modestly grave and inviolably chaste,
observing the requirements of virtuous widowhood, and in being tidy
in her person and everything about her; in whatever she does to be
unassuming, and whenever she moves or sits to be decorous. This
is female virtue.” In the Rules for Women, written by Lady Tsao, the
heading of no less than five out of the seven chapters refers to the
attitude of woman towards her menfolk, which shows that she was
wise in her generation: and this work naturally became a classic and
has been studied by all succeeding generations down to the present
day!
 A Chinese Leader of Thought.

Page 174

After this reference to the past, we come to a consideration of the

present-day Chinese woman, and it has been my good fortune to
meet some of the finest of the new school. They are taking a high
place and winning the respect and consideration not only of their
own countrymen, but of British, French and Americans by their
ability, their singleness of purpose and undaunted determination. In
the law school in Paris lately a Chinese girl took her degree; doctors
who have studied in America and England have attained great
distinction in their homeland after their return, and have overcome all
the opposition aroused, in early days last century, by their foreign
training and innovations.
Chinese women have evinced a keen patriotic spirit, sometimes
shown in strange ways. When we were at Changteh they had
demonstrated against the Japanese aggression by cutting their hair
short! This did not meet the approval of the civil authorities, and they
sent round the town crier, beating his drum, to prohibit women from
doing this, under pain of receiving six hundred stripes! If the girls’
action was ill judged, it meant at all events a great sacrifice, so the
penalty seems severe.
Perhaps the best way of showing the new trend of thought is to
give a sketch of one of the most remarkable of the new generation,
and who may be known to some of my readers, as she spent five
years in England and took a London degree in science, with honours
in botany, in 1917. Miss Pao Swen Tseng belongs to one of the great
families whose genealogies have been carefully kept for the last
twenty-five hundred years or so, and whose notable men have left
their mark on the page of history. In the sixth century b.c. a
philosopher of the family was one of the exponents of Confucian
teaching, another was a great general at the time of the Taiping
Rebellion and was largely instrumental in putting an end to it. For
these services he received a beautiful estate with buildings, temple,
lake and gardens in it from the Emperor, and also gifts from the
guilds of Changsha, in Hunan, where the estate is situated. Here his
descendant the Marquis Tseng lived, who became a well-known
figure at the court of St. James, being Chinese minister here and
afterwards at the Russian court. Even before he left Hunan—the
most foreign-hating province of China—he was an ardent student of
the English language, although he had no teacher and was obliged
to study it only from most inadequate books. The family library was
housed in a larger building than the family, which indicates the family
tradition; but as may be supposed, it was no easy task that the
Marquis had undertaken. When he lived in Peking he defied all
precedent, and allied himself with the foreign British community;
although his English was naturally most difficult to understand he
persevered, and continually entertained Englishmen at his house
and received their hospitality in return. This was done contrary to the
strong feeling of opposition then existing at the court of Peking,
where no Chinaman, even in a subordinate position, would be seen
in company with a European or entering his house. I mention these
facts because they reappear so vividly in the history of his
granddaughter, Pao Tseng.
Miss Tseng’s education began at an early age: she had a tutor
when she was three years old and two tutors by the time she was
five. No wonder that she rebelled, and history relates that one day
she took refuge in a tree, from which she was finally cajoled by one
of her Chinese teachers to come down by promises which he
forthwith ignored. It may be a source of surprise that she was able to
climb a tree, but happily for Pao Tseng she had an enlightened
grandmother, who, at a time when such a thing was unheard of, had
the strength of mind to save the girls of her family from the torture
and disablement of bound feet, knowing in her own person the cost
of such disablement.
At ten years old Pao Tseng was a keen student of Chinese history,
and the seed was sown, which later sprang up into an ardent
patriotism and desire for the ancient glory of her race to be restored.
She injured her eyesight by too close study, and two years later had
become a Chinese classical scholar, a feat of which it would be
impossible for anyone to realize the magnitude unless they knew
something of the classics. She then begged leave to go and study
Western knowledge, and was sent to one of the new Government
schools at Hangchow, some thousand miles distant, to reach which
there was no railway in those days. The tone of the school was so
displeasing to her, that she soon left it and went to the (C.M.S.) Mary
Vaughan High School for girls, where she found a sympathetic friend
as well as teacher in the head mistress, Miss Barnes. In the turmoil
and distress of mind caused by the condition of her country she
found comfort in the study of the Christian faith and wrote to her
father that she wished to become a Christian. He was evidently a
man of rare wisdom, and stipulated that before taking so important a
step she should study the writings of its European opponents. It is
strange to think of such a child being set down to a course of Herbert
Spencer, Frederick Harrison, and other leading non-Christian writers:
her views were not changed by it. She again wrote to her father to
this effect, and he gave his consent to her open profession of
Christianity, coupled with the wise advice that she should become
the best possible type of Christian. She decided to join no particular
sect, looking forward to the time when China would have a church
suitable to her needs and character.
In 1912 Pao Tseng obtained the family’s consent that she should
go to England for further training. She had accepted as her vocation
the call of her country to a life of educational work in China. Her
family would not allow her to go abroad without a guardian, and Miss
Barnes undertook the post, relinquishing the head mistress-ship of
the High School in order to do this. Pao Tseng entered the
Blackheath High School, and from there passed to Westfield
College. It was at this time that I had the pleasure of making her
acquaintance, having already heard of the impression she had made
at the college. No one could be with her without being aware of the
deep seriousness of her nature, and she was greatly liked by her
fellow-students. Chinese girls always seem to get on well in England,
and to fit in easily with our idiosyncrasies. There is nothing like the
gulf between them and us which seems to separate us in our ways
of thinking and of looking on life from our Indian fellow-subjects.
After taking her degree and studying educational methods and
training at St. Mary’s College, Paddington, she returned to China at
the age of twenty to begin her life work at her old home in Changsha,
the capital of Hunan.
When the monarchy was overthrown in 1911, the new republic
confiscated the property of many of the gentry, amongst others that
of the Tseng family, using the buildings as barracks for the troops:
they caused great havoc in them. It was only after much difficulty
and many delays that the family succeeded in getting the property
restored to them, though a part of it is still requisitioned for the
soldiers, and a flimsy partition put up to screen it from the rest. This
might prove a danger to the school, but so far, Miss Tseng told me,
they had behaved extremely well, their only misdeed being to cut
down two trees. It was necessary to rebuild the house for a school.
The garden is really charming, in true Chinese style, with carved
bridges over the winding stretch of water, shady paths and quaint
rockery; dazzling golden orioles and kingfishers make their home in
the classic willow trees that overhang the lake, and the stillness
which broods over all makes it an ideal spot for study.
But study is not the only thing in education, and Miss Tseng has
adopted English ideals with regard to the value of sport in a girl’s
education as well as in a boy’s. Since my visit the stillness of the tiny
lake is joyously broken by girls learning the art of boating, under the
coaching of Mr. and Miss Tseng, and they have two boats. They also
study American games, and were recently challenged by a boys’
school to a match at lacrosse. They had only been learning a very
short time and knew themselves too weak for their opponents, but a
sporting instinct prevented their declining the challenge. As may be
supposed, they sustained a severe beating, but bore it so gallantly
that the onlookers said that they were like the British: they had learnt
to take defeat smiling!
It is difficult to believe that some of these girls did not know their
alphabet two years ago; that discipline, as we understand it, was
unknown to them. They all learn English and some had got on
amazingly well with it. They have a “Round Table,” at which meetings
all must take a share in whatever is the subject under discussion:
this is to teach them how to take part in public meetings and how to
express themselves.
The spirit of service is strongly developed. In a three days’ public
holiday the girls set themselves to collect money from their friends
for the famine relief in the north. Their aim was five hundred dollars,
but they collected double the amount. Christianity is taught as the
basis of social service, as it is at the root of this fine piece of
educational work. The whole staff is united in this bond, and they
have already succeeded in setting a new standard among the
schools at Changsha.
In 1918 Miss Tseng opened her school, under the guardianship (if
one may so call it) of Miss Barnes, and splendidly helped by two of
her men cousins, whom I knew as fine students in London, and both
of whom are honorary workers. All the élite of Changsha were
present, including the Minister of Education, the British consul and
the missionary community. This was the planting of the mustard
seed destined one day to grow into a tree. There were but eight
pupils, varying in age from fourteen to twenty-two, a number which
was increased fivefold in two years. As befits a Chinese school, it
has a poetic name, I-Fang—“The Garden of Fragrance,” and the
school motto is “Loyalty and Sympathy,” the two words by which the
philosopher Tseng had summed up the teaching of Confucius some
two thousand five hundred years ago.
It was at a garden party in honour of the King’s birthday held at the
British Consulate that we met Miss Tseng last summer, and she most
kindly bade us to lunch next day, and asked me to speak to her
students. I had no idea at the time of what she had done since we
parted in London, or even that she lived at Changsha. It was with a
shock of delighted surprise that we passed from the hot, busy, dusty
street into the cool loveliness of the garden. Our time was woefully
limited, and I should like to have sketched all day as well as talked,
but there was so much to see and hear that it is impossible to do
justice to it in this brief account. If the Tseng family can leave their
impress on the charming bevy of girls we saw, they will have
rendered the greatest possible service to their country, and I feel
confident that such will be the case. When I reflect on the state of
unrest which existed during the birth of this school and the masterly
way in which Miss Tseng has overcome all the difficulties of the
situation, I find no words adequate to express my admiration.
In another chapter I have dealt with the student movement, which
produced strikes all over the Chinese empire: not a school or
university escaped its influence. Miss Tseng explained to her
students her feelings with regard to the movement, and told them to
reflect on the subject, and discuss it among themselves before
deciding whether they would strike. She brought no pressure to bear
on them, while very strong pressure was brought to bear on them
from outside, but their unanimous decision was to “carry on,” and
this school alone out of thirty-six in the city continued its work
steadily and continuously, while the others—both boys and girls—
were on strike. Miss Tseng wrote a letter to the Central Chinese
Post, a paper published in English, which won widespread
admiration. The editor of the paper wrote to her: “Allow me to
congratulate you on the sane and patriotic views which you hold, and
on your splendid mastery of the English language. Your letter is by
far the best thing which has appeared on the subject of the students’
boycott.” When it is considered that it is written by one so young it is
indeed remarkable, and I make no apology for quoting part of it, with
the explanation that the mistress-ship to which she refers was one
that she had been persuaded to accept by strong governmental
pressure—that of the first Normal School for Girls: she soon found
herself obliged to resign the post.

To the Editor, Central China Post.

Dear Sir,—You would have known by this time the details
of the extraordinary developments of the student activities in
Hunan. Perhaps you would allow me the use of your valuable
columns to make a few criticisms and an appeal in connexion
therewith.
The frank opinion, in Hunan at any rate, of every unbiased
observer is that the primary wrong rested with the Provincial
Government. As I have just sent in my resignation of the
Principalship of the first Provincial Normal School for Girls—a
post I was invited to fill by the educationists here only a few
months ago—I feel I can speak more freely and with a certain
amount of authority. The Government has neglected
education so much that all the schools dependent on
Government funds have been confronted with starvation and
bankruptcy in growing proportions for the last two or three
months. This absolute poverty has reduced the none too
perfect education in Hunan to the mere shadow of a name.
 Satan always finds evil work for every idle hand, so no
wonder discontents will foment.
The actual thunderbolt came on the 3rd inst., when the
Government interfered in the burning of Japanese goods by
students. There in front of hundreds of students and
thousands of onlookers, Chang Chingtang, the Governor’s
brother, forbade the destruction at the eleventh hour. He
struck with his own fist the secretary of the Chang Chun
Middle School, who had dared to show impatience at the
abusive language that was being poured out. At the same
time his soldiers welcomed the students with the butt-ends of
their rifles. Then of course the glove was down and the
students took it up. All the pent-up hatred against the
Government broke out with redoubled force. A secret meeting
was held on the 5th among the students, and by Sunday, the
7th, all the schools excepting one or two began to disperse,
declaring that they would never return till Chang Ching-yao is
driven out of Hunan. To-day only the Fang Siang School and
our School are in regular work. Even the Yale and Hunan Yale
medical colleges are given official “holidays.” The
Government has succeeded in wrecking the entire fabric of
education in the most masterly fashion, that even surprised its
ardent admirers.
In view of the foregoing one cannot but deeply sympathize
with the motive of the students, but their method of making a
protest will, I am afraid, have certain undesirable effects. Etc.
etc.

I was much struck with the frank, pleasant tone of the girls: some
were able to talk English. In connexion with the student strike a
master of one of the other schools said to one of the girls:
“Your Principal has managed splendidly to keep her students from
striking.”
“Yes, indeed,” she replied, “but our Principal did not force us, we
all agreed unanimously with her not to strike.”
 This detail is characteristic of both teacher and taught—Liberty
and Frankness. The Christian temper of “sweet reasonableness”
irradiates the place, but no one will be urged to become Christian.
Brightness, cleanliness and gaiety rule everywhere, and the
dormitories and classrooms are thoroughly attractive. What a
pleasant sphere for any English girl who goes as teacher there, and
the growing needs of the school demand such help at once; a B.Sc.
is required, and none but highly qualified teachers are suitable for
such educational posts in China.
It seemed passing strange to realize that Changsha was the
storm-centre of fighting between Northern and Southern troops, and
the very next day the latter were expected to invade the city.
“Girls,
Knowledge is now no more a fountain seal’d:
Drink deep.”
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